Laptops which run Arch

Awebb · 2015-07-07 00:30:42

I currently use a Schenker w504 Mobile Workstation. It is configurable during the purchase, so not every w504 is the same.

» The Intel wifi works out of the box.
» It has Intel video from the Core i7 and an NVIDIA 970m via Optimus. The Geforce is behind the Intel outputs and cannot run alone. Both chips work with the default Intel drivers and the usual Bumblebee setup. I was surprised how well this works, I followed the wiki article and had no problems whatsoever.

x I use a back-lit keyboard, that can display a wide pallet of colors and visual effects like blinking and pulsating in three different zones. While I have not found any means to change the colors in Linux, it seems to use the last profile set up on Windows once you are logged in. I must admit I have not put any effort into this.

» Bluetooth works out of the box. It's part of the wifi chip.
» LAN works.
» All video outs work without problems, including the Display Ports.
» The egistec finger print sensor works, although the entire PAM auth via fingerprint story is still largely an unwritten tale. The hardware works, I can scan and identify my fingerprint.
» Sound works. There is a sticker suggesting, that the device has not only a Realtek sound card, but also a Creative Soundblaster X-FI, but beyond a really really crappy Windows software, I am unable to find evidence of its existence.
» All FN keys return something more or less comprehensible in xev, backlight is controllable even without X. There is no Wifi switch, only an Airplane mode button, that doesn't work in a TTY alone.
» Energy management seems fine. The battery is recognized correctly and the charge indication agrees with the data on Windows.
» There are no hickups whatsoever after resuming from whatever S state I came up with. This is a first for me, I have never possessed a device without resume problems before. Maybe it's broken. Hibernation is out of the question, though, I have 32GiB RAM installed and currently run three different operating systems.
» The touchpad works with the Synaptics package.

revellion · 2015-07-07 07:49:45

Running ArchLinux x86_64 on a Lenovo Thinkpad T420i with all the hardware supported out-of-the-box and stable. Aswell as proper power-management and more.

GoogleBot42 · 2015-07-10 16:27:02

Acer Aspire 5733z

Everything works right out of the box. Battery life is better than with windows 7 included with computer. No performance issues whatsoever. Getting temperature of cpu cores works.

Last edited by GoogleBot42 (2015-07-10 16:30:39)

SUDOnator · 2015-07-11 16:18:20

As specified in my forum signature I run Arch alongside Debian on my Lenovo ThinkPad W500.

Some specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo (Penryn) 2.8 GHz
Switchable Graphics: (got it to work using PRIME on both Debian and Arch, more info in the ArchWiki
-ATI/AMD Mobility Radeon HD 3650 (discrete, 256 MB VRAM)
-Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
15.4" TFT display with 1920x1200 (WUXGA) resolution
4GB RAM
750GB HDD (brand new replacement HDD)

More here: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:W500

Last edited by SUDOnator (2015-07-11 16:21:15)

sesese9 · 2015-07-14 00:29:11

Dell Latitude D630
-Intel Core 2 Duo T1700? 1.8 GHz
-intel Graphics
-Broadcom BCM4311 or 12 (had to install b43 and it worked)
-2 GB Ram
Terrible battery life but I'm going to fix that soon...
And yes, I know it's old

antonio_aln · 2015-07-27 19:03:36

ms wrote:

antonio_aln wrote:
I'm running Arch on my ASUS X552EA, and it's smooth, run like a breeze.
Everything works, if properly configured. Wi-Fi worked without any special setting, the Radeon video card works well with the open source driver, so I didn't have to use the closed source one.
Did Fn keys works? I have X550Z but Fn keys does not work. What about brightness?

Yes, they work, I just don't use the Windows specific functions (some fn like fn + c [I've forgot what does it open ATM], fn + v [opens camera app] , and fn + spacebar [opens power gear application]), I didn't have to do anything else to make them work.
About brightness: It does work, as I said, with the open source driver for Radeon.
Sorry if I took too long to reply, last week I spent my spare time in a Congress at the Brazilian computation society...

Last edited by antonio_aln (2015-07-27 20:19:00)

tabsterleir · 2015-07-28 01:29:16

Toshiba Satellite Pro C50-B (PSCLVA-001001)
- Display works fine (Intel GPU)
- External display (both VGA and HDMI) work fine
- Audio works fine
- Some hotkeys work fine. Brightness keys can be fixed by doing the following:

## First, edit /etc/default/grub
sudo nano /etc/default/grub

## Edit this line:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

## To read this:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="acpi_backlight=vendor"

## Refresh grub
sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

## Now, create a rule file for your keyboard
sudo nano /etc/udev/hwdb.d/70-keyboard.hwdb

## Add the following EXACTLY AS IT IS DISPLAYED (including spaces)
keyboard:name:Toshiba*input*device:dmi:bvn*:bvr*:bd*:svn*:pn*:pvr*
 KEYBOARD_KEY_13c=brightnessdown
 KEYBOARD_KEY_13d=brightnessup
 KEYBOARD_KEY_13e=switchvideomode
 KEYBOARD_KEY_13f=touchpad_toggle

## Save and close the file. Update udev
sudo udevadm hwdb --update

## Reboot

- Wi-Fi works fine
- Ethernet works fine
- Bluetooth does not exist(?)
- Touchpad works fine
- Headphone jack works fine
- Card reader has not been tested yet (will update once I have)
- Optical drive works fine
- USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports work fine
- Secure boot CAN be disabled
- Legacy boot CAN be enabled

EDIT: Much better fix for the brightness keys (and the rest of the keys) is to blacklist the "toshiba_acpi" module. To do that:

## Create a config file in /etc/modprobe.d called "toshiba-blacklist.conf"
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/toshiba-blacklist.conf

## Add the following to blacklist the Toshiba ACPI driver:
blacklist toshiba_acpi

## Save and reboot

Last edited by tabsterleir (2015-09-06 07:22:35)

SUDOnator · 2015-07-29 01:16:13

sesese9 wrote:

And yes, I know it's old

I have an ultraportable that is even older (see below signature)

GloW_on_dub · 2015-07-29 08:09:32

Work Laptop is Dell XPS 15 ( Year 2015) (no choice of brand) : No problem except with HiDpi (retina screen), but it's mainly DE issue, not arch issue. Lowring res works well.
Netbook is from a french company (LDLC) that mount and sell laptop without os, so cheaper and fonctionnal, battery died though.

Kardell · 2015-08-02 16:40:01

HP ProBook 430 G1, Intel i5, 16GB RAM

- Display works fine (Intel GPU)
- External display (both VGA and HDMI) work fine
- Audio works fine
- Wi-Fi works fine
- Ethernet works fine
- Touchpad works fine
- Headphone jack works fine
- Card reader works fine

Outstanding:
- Bluetooth - not tested
- Fingerprint reader - not tested
- Function keys - not tested

Median · 2015-08-04 15:11:18

Dell XPS 13 (the non-QHD version). Everything works fine with the latest BIOS update, but the touchpad can stop working after some hours.

dreadz · 2015-08-04 19:28:05

I'm running dwm on Lenovo X201 with i5, 8GB ram and 256GB Samsung SSD.

Instead of a camera module i have a Intel Ultimate-N 6300 wireless adapter.

No problems even when i have to plug in the projector at uni. Very happy

martinmr · 2015-08-17 01:02:47

Lenovo W541 with i7 4710MQ processor, 20GB RAM and a 1TB Samsung SSD. Pretty much everything works out of the box.

My only hardware problem has been to get the fingerprint reader to work consistently. The hardware gets recognized and I can use fprintd-enroll to add my fingerprints but most of the time my fingerprints get rejected when I try to login. It just seems like the sensor or the driver are too picky about the input they accept. I eventually gave up and continued using passwords but in the end it is not a very big deal.

Optimus works well enough using the proprietary nvidia driver.

ninedotnine · 2015-08-17 04:03:13

mostly for my own reference later...

dell inspiron 11 3147 2-in-1 laptop/tablet. not amazing specs, but very portable and nice price. super cute little machine.

came with windows whatever, but obviously incapable of running it. pretty slow running ubuntu as well.

with arch: performance fine. X works no problem, but sometimes froze completely and unreconverably. easily fixed by disabling GPU acceleration as described on the arch wiki. switching TTYs causes insanity, but restarting X fixes it. supposedly the next kernel release will patch this problem...

touchscreen works out of the box, except it doesn't flip when the screen is rotated to tablet mode. i wrote a script.

i don't know about mic or webcam, because who cares

battery life is fabulous though

elsherif · 2015-08-18 06:26:56

Lenovo IdeaPad Y570
Working great.

Blue Harp · 2015-08-18 07:17:44

See my signature below. Works well.

Rethil · 2015-08-18 12:10:02

Asus R510LD-XO269H works fine with some magic.

1. For backlight buttons to work (fn+f5, fn+f6) parameter

acpi_osi=

is needed. Yes, with nothing after equal.

2. Wifi connection is choppy with ipv6 enabled, disabling it does the work.

seqizz · 2015-08-21 08:00:28

MSI GS60 2QE : i7-5700HQ / 16G ram / 2x128 ssd + 1tb hdd / nvidia gtx 970m

Intel fakeraid seems working even in the install media, check /dev/md* devices:

⚡> tail -2 /etc/mdadm.conf
ARRAY /dev/md/imsm0 metadata=imsm
ARRAY /dev/md/RAID0IMSVolume_0 container=/dev/md/imsm0 member=0 UUID=your-disk-uuid-should-be-here

Bumblebee seems to work fine with bbswitch (Check below note #1):

⚡> pacman -Q | grep "nvidia\|mesa"
lib32-mesa 10.6.4-1
lib32-mesa-demos 8.2.0-2
lib32-mesa-libgl 10.6.4-1
lib32-mesa-vdpau 10.6.4-1
lib32-nvidia-utils 352.30-1
lib32-opencl-nvidia 352.30-1
libva-mesa-driver 10.6.4-1
mesa 10.6.4-1
mesa-demos 8.2.0-4
mesa-libgl 10.6.4-1
mesa-vdpau 10.6.4-1
nvidia 352.30-3
nvidia-utils 352.30-1
opencl-nvidia 352.30-1

Wifi works if you make&make install the "driver" directory inside ath10k-dkms_1.1_all.deb file. (Check below, note #2). I'm too lazy to create a DKMS profile for now:

⚡> lspci| grep -i wireless
05:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros Killer N1525 Wireless-AC (rev 20)

Bluetooth doesn't work (or I can't make it work):

⚡> lsusb | grep -i atheros
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0cf3:3004 Atheros Communications, Inc. AR3012 Bluetooth 4.0

Everything else seems working great.

Note #1: you might want to switch to UXA for integrated graphics. I had some kernel panics on SNA. Just put this as /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf:

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
   Driver      "intel"
   Option      "AccelMethod"  "uxa"
EndSection

Note #2: Wifi started working good with latest kernel updates, no need to compile anymore.

Last edited by seqizz (2015-09-03 12:18:56)

JohnBobSmith · 2015-08-27 17:40:27

I am running an HP Pavilion G6 with the following specifications:

[dmb@linux-box ~]$ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: linux-box Kernel: 4.1.6-1-ARCH x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.2.0) Desktop: i3 4.10.3 Distro: Arch Linux
Machine:   System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP Pavilion g6 Notebook PC v: 088B110000305910000620100
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 1849 v: 57.35 Bios: Insyde v: F.26 date: 02/21/2013
CPU:       Dual core AMD A4-4300M APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) cache: 2048 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 9986
           clock speeds: max: 2500 MHz 1: 2500 MHz 2: 1800 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Trinity [Radeon HD 7420G] bus-ID: 00:01.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.17.2 driver: fglrx Resolution: 1366x768@60.07hz
           GLX Renderer: AMD Radeon HD 7420G GLX Version: 4.5.13397 - CPC 15.20.1046 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] FCH Azalia Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:14.2
           Card-2 Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Trinity HDMI Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:01.1
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.1.6-1-ARCH
Network:   Card-1: Ralink RT3290 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe driver: rt2860 bus-ID: 02:00.0
           IF: eno1 state: dormant mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 2000 bus-ID: 05:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-3: Belkin F5D8053 N Wireless USB Adapter v3000 [Ralink RT2870]
           driver: rt2800usb v: 2.3.0 usb-ID: 007-002
           IF: wlp0s18f2u1 state: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (1.9% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST500LM012_HN size: 500.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 459G used: 8.8G (3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 59.1C mobo: N/A gpu: 48.00C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 95 Uptime: 15:06 Memory: 483.2/5381.7MB Init: systemd Gcc sys: 5.2.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.391) inxi: 2.2.28 
[dmb@linux-box ~]$

I really like AMD's trinity architecture and APU design in general. Im actually really happy with those temperatures, I was fearing it would be much higher. It could use some compressed air I think, but for now that looks okay. On a different note, my laptop is also amazing for gaming. When it had Windows 8 on it, I was playing battlefield 3 (albeit on lowest settings) but it was playable without melting. I'm not huge on the big AAA titles anymore though. The point is my laptop has handled everything I have thrown at it, and then some. Now that I am more or less done setting up Arch, its time to see what the next wave of stuff being thrown at it will be. Lots of audio-visual design and programming + games I think.

d4rkeagle6591 · 2015-09-29 00:01:43

Used to run Arch on a few desktops (and RPis). Ended up wanting more portablility. Now I am running Arch on a Lenovo Y70 Touch.

$ optirun inxi -Fxz
System:    Kernel: 4.2.1-1-ARCH x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.2.0) Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 (Gtk 2.24.28)
           Distro: Arch Linux
Machine:   System: LENOVO product: 80DU v: Lenovo Y70-70 Touch
           Mobo: LENOVO model: Lenovo Y70-70 Touch
           Bios: LENOVO v: 9ECN37WW(V2.01) date: 02/11/2015
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i7-4710HQ (-HT-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 19962
           clock speeds: max: 3500 MHz 1: 2663 MHz 2: 2500 MHz 3: 2500 MHz 4: 3068 MHz 5: 2988 MHz 6: 2500 MHz
           7: 2598 MHz 8: 3490 MHz
Graphics:  Card-1: Intel 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Card-2: NVIDIA GM107M [GeForce GTX 860M] bus-ID: 01:00.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.17.2 driver: intel Resolution: 1920x1080@60.01hz
           GLX Renderer: GeForce GTX 860M/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 355.11 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Card-2 Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:03.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.2.1-1-ARCH
Network:   Card-1: Broadcom BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter driver: wl bus-ID: 08:00.0
           IF: wlp8s0 state: up mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 3000 bus-ID: 09:00.0
           IF: enp9s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 1120.2GB (8.5% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD1001X06X size: 1120.2GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 108G used: 24G (23%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 2.15GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda2
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0
Info:      Processes: 210 Uptime: 1:53 Memory: 1170.6/15965.0MB Init: systemd Gcc sys: 5.2.0
           Client: Shell (optirun) inxi: 2.2.28

For wireless, I needed to install broadcom-wl. Havent figured out why the dkms version of it wont work.

Bluetooth was a bit annoying, but I finally figured a workaround. The firmware that was installed was throwing errors when I attempted to connect a device. It would load the bluetooth card, but not pair to something. via lshw I found the ID 0489-e07a for the bluetooth card. Did some searching and had to follow this post on stackexchange, but I had to download the latest windows driver, and use hex2hci on the correct .hex file (found by looking in the INI), rename and then copy the firmware to /lib/firmware/brcm, which finally let me pair and connect the bluetooth.

Bumblebee works perfect with the nvidia graphics card! bbswitch is having a weird issue, but I am still doing research to see if I can figure it out before making a post here.

I replaced the drive with a WD Black2 drive, and followed https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/WD_Black2 to set it up with fdisk correctly.

Everything else worked from a default installation.

Last edited by d4rkeagle6591 (2015-09-29 00:03:03)

rg666 · 2015-10-02 13:16:24

Lenovo Aspire 5479.

Used Windows right from the 98 days, and used it till getting fed up of Win10, switched over to Mint, liked it, but wanted more from my Linux, so well, now it's going to be the Arch-way.

kyusaki · 2015-10-03 01:14:59

HP Pavilion X360 a-186no works wonders with arch, the only thing I had to install in order for it to work perfectly was broadcom-wl.

I do not currently know if the battery holds up to the standard, but it solely depends on the usage!

ygyfygy · 2015-10-03 10:06:30

ASUS X750-JB

Just werks, except Bluetooth and airckrack-ng.

Last edited by ygyfygy (2015-10-03 10:07:15)

sobralense · 2015-10-03 20:23:47

Macbook 4,1 (Early 2008) old warrior, forgot by apple, stuck on old OSX versions, revived with arch linux for learning javascript fullstack.

SaltySockets · 2015-10-11 17:27:30

Q: Can Lenovo ThinkPad T450s run Linux?
A: Yes

I have a ThinkPad T450s and it runs just fine. No flaws, the drivers for the hardware are still rapidly improving. I don't think that the fingerprint reader or smartcard addon option is supported but the Realtek RTS5227 SD card reader is supported.

I got a T450s from a retail store with the fingerprint and smartcard reader addons for cheap compared to buying a custom unit without these two options from Lenovo. They don't show up with lspci as far as I've been able to read. I haven't done any research on these two devices yet. Maybe I'll be forced to write drivers for them in a few years. I'm new to this game so I'm not going to dig into reverse engineering and driver programming yet.
The smartcard reader might be supported but I haven't inserted a compatible smartcard yet. The smartcard reader is pretty much a bus and I have some odd busses showing up in lspci.

Arch Linux

#1801 2015-07-07 00:30:42

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1802 2015-07-07 07:49:45

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1803 2015-07-10 16:27:02

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1804 2015-07-11 16:18:20

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1805 2015-07-14 00:29:11

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1806 2015-07-27 19:03:36

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1807 2015-07-28 01:29:16

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1808 2015-07-29 01:16:13

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1809 2015-07-29 08:09:32

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1810 2015-08-02 16:40:01

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1811 2015-08-04 15:11:18

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1812 2015-08-04 19:28:05

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1813 2015-08-17 01:02:47

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1814 2015-08-17 04:03:13

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1815 2015-08-18 06:26:56

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1816 2015-08-18 07:17:44

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1817 2015-08-18 12:10:02

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1818 2015-08-21 08:00:28

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1819 2015-08-27 17:40:27

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1820 2015-09-29 00:01:43

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1821 2015-10-02 13:16:24

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1822 2015-10-03 01:14:59

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1823 2015-10-03 10:06:30

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1824 2015-10-03 20:23:47

Re: Laptops which run Arch

#1825 2015-10-11 17:27:30

Re: Laptops which run Arch

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