Lenovo T4/500 vs Dell E64/500 - Linux Support

So, I have been searching for a new laptop and it has come down to these two. The thing that will make my decision is how well they will run linux.

Both seem to work overall but have some minor problems. Also many of the forum posts were old and some problems could be fixed.

Lenovo T4/500
-After reading numerous forum posts, some users were complaining about a short battery life (supposed to have a great battery life on xp / vista)
-Graphic card switching doesn't work, but they way linux is going support could be out for that sooner than I think.
-Very popular model with lots of info on it.

Dell E64/500
-some complaints about the fans running too much.
-not as much coverage on it. Less support as well.
-nVidia card which has better support atm.

So can anyone clear up any misconceptions I may have or give me some reasons to pick one or the other.

 

Battery life is still an issue. On most laptops, you'll get less battery lifetime in most Linux distributions than in Vista, and perhaps XP as well. Both my old laptop and my T500 have shown this to be true in my experiences at least.

 

i have a t400 with integrated graphics and a 9 cell battery

with wifi on, bluetooth off, and display brightness at 50%

vista - 7.5 hours
xp - 6 hours
ubuntu - 5 hours

pretty much everything worked out of the box for me with ubuntu. a few workarounds were needed but easy to find with the great documentation online. the only thing i miss about windows is the fingerprint reader.

 

Well 5 hours still seems pretty good. Anyone have any info on the Dell models?

 

@j0hn00:
That's odd; I have a T400 with discrete graphics and a 9 cell battery, which runs for at least 5.5 hours when I've got display brightness at 100% and wifi on. But I'm running Gentoo, not Ubuntu, so that may be the difference.

@Dethredic: if you're interested in extending the battery life, you should look into undervolting/underclocking the CPU and you should definitely apply thermal compound (Arctic Silver is the best; you can get it on Newegg) to the CPU, as it's very cheap (~$8) and can lower your CPU temperature by an entire °C (and thus can extend the battery life). Of course, this will work in both Linux and Windows, but if you need some minimum battery life to use Linux, it might help.

 

also, it's probably because your system is more optimized than mine. it's only been a few weeks since i completely moved over to linux and am still learning.

 

Cool. I have some Arctic silver laying around from when I built my desktop. Also I should be running arch, so we will see how that compares.

 

Myself, I can't complain too much about battery life. I'm running Arch Linux on my 9-cell equipped T400, with a simple XFCE desktop (no compositing etc.). I have to admit that hard-switching on integrated graphics and my choice of the LED-backlit display does some extra power saving for me. However, hdparm -B 254, which is needed to stop the constant hard drive clicking, adds another watt for the notoriously power-hungry WD hard drive. And yes, that is much...

I let it run some magic commands at startup and even manually run a shell script as root to put the wireless into power-saving mode (doing that automatically doesn't work somehow because of permission problems). As a result, I get an idling desktop with wireless and 3rd lowest brightness running somewhere around 10 watts - realistic battery life is 7 hours or a bit more. Vista doesn't really get more out of it, mainly because there is much more HD and also CPU access. Lenovo's Power Manager is jumping happily between 9 and 14 watts under the same conditions.

I did notice a very strange effect on Linux, though. Booting up, eth0 is always up and running, even if I got no cable connected. If I connect a cable and disconnect it again, the interface is not running anymore, and power consumption drops by 0.7 watts, which means half an hour extra. Could be some bug in e1000e - does anyone know more about this issue?

 

thanks man. I hope someone has the dell.

 

My e6400 will be arriving early next week. (finally!) I can let you know how I get on when it comes in. Meanwhile, I know there are people here who run Linux on a e6400. Also you can find a bit of info at on how Ubuntu runs on it at the Ubuntu laptop testing team e6400 page.

I looked at the Ubuntu support before I ordered mine and I think all the bugs that would have affected me have been fixed. Apparently the fingerprint reader doesn't work, but I wouldn't have used that anyway.

 

Sweet keep me updated.

 

alder, I am curious about the choice of the Dell wireless 1510? I would have guessed that the Intel wireless 5100 or 5300 would have been a better choice for linux compatibility.

 

You may be right, timberwolf. I didn't realize that this could be an issue until the computer was already on its way. It's coming from USA to the UK a long way around.

What problems do you think I could run into?

[edit] I've searched online. It seems the card is manufactured by Broadcom and there may be drivers for it. Intel would definitely have been a smarter choice. I'll just have to see when I get the machine.

 

For many years, I recall reading messages about Broadcom wifi being difficult to get working. The following short article gives a little glimpse http://blogs.computerworld.com/new_linux_broadcom_wi_fi_drivers_arrive and I see also some hope that Broadcom has begun (been convinced?) to change its policy regarding linux.

 

I'm still comparing these, especially the T400 and the Dell E6400.

I was curious if there is a big hit regarding battery life regarding the T400 if you opt for the ATI card. Is that a bad choice to take if you use Linux? I know that ATI is supposed to be better with Linux support but how is it for the general user? What if you try compiz? What if you watch videos (i.e. movies). How is the heat if you opt for the ATI card? What does that do to battery life compared to the Intel 4500 card?

Same question with Dell and the Nvidia card but I guess that mostly applies to battery life since Nvidia has a better record for Linux support despite the proprietary nature of their drivers.

I think it's a tie regarding these laptops but I wonder if the situation with one is enough to edge out the other depending on which configuration you use. I want decent battery life. I figure there might be an occasion in which you want at least 2+ hrs min. so the 5 hrs is sufficient but is that only with an Intel card?

 

Hey timberwolf, I think experiences vary but I haven't been too happy with a Mini-PCI Broadcom-based wireless card in my Thinkpad T41 so I bought an Intel wireless card. I am awaiting some screws I bought on ebay since I am missing some but I will soon see if I have an improvement.

I know people who have got their Broadcom cards to work but imho, it all depends on how the distro has incorporated the Broadcom drivers. Some require you add a 'non-free' repository and/or that you obtain the firmware. I prefer something open source especially when it regards wireless or at least something that is already built into the kernel, for e.g. I still think that Broadcom has a lot more to do before their cards/drivers are problem-free but YMMV. I guess you'll find out soon enough.

 

I got e6400 today, and I'll report on the Ubuntu installation as soon as I get everything up and running. First impressions: nice computer! The Broadcom wireless card doesn't work from the live cd, that was obviously a mistake. It'll take a little while to find out how much of a mistake. It seems the middle trackpoint button behaves like a left-click. All of the other basic functionality is fine, so far.

Vista isn't playing nicely, though. It's taking up far more than its fair share of the HDD.

 

sweet. Ya I remember reading something about the trackpad issue with the dell. There is a fix, don't worry.

 

Ok. This is my first proper Ubuntu install so I'm still sorting a lot of things out. Basically, I can say that the E6400 runs Linux well.

I've had very few hardware headaches. The keyboard and ports have given me no problem. I have an esata drive that plugs in without hiccup. The Broadcom wireless card worked fine once Ubuntu was installed. The Nvidia card is happy with the most recent drivers. On the keyboard, everything does what you'd expect it to do, with the exception of the windows key. The volume buttons work. The touchpad and trackpad both operate normally.

I don't have bluetooth installed or the fingerprint reader. I haven't tried the various card readers.

There are some details I still have to work out. The middle mouse button doesn't work yet. I have a second monitor attached, but it's not behaving quite right yet. Not sure I have the audio input configured correctly yet.

I got 3 hours of battery life with the monitor brightness set high. I don't know if there are ways to improve that.

[edit] I haven't run anything very cpu or gpu intensive yet, but so far my computer runs cool and quietly. One of the reasons I bought the machine was for the 3-year global warranty support. So far I've had good experiences with the Dell support.

One more issue I ran into: the RAM the computer came with apparently isn't compatible with the RAM I bought from newegg.com. 1 GB pre-installed is 8 bit, while the 2GB I bought is 16 bit?

 

What battery do you have, the 6 or 9 cell?

 

I have the 6 cell.

 

My Dell Precision m4400 runs Slackware like a champ...everything works...dedicated sound buttons, webcam....ah...haven't tried the fingerprint reader yet....think I'll look into that now....

 

I will look into the precision. Seems to have some good specs.

 

It runs Ubuntu perfectly also....but I have to say I've had X problems with many other distributions other than Slackware and Ubuntu. I was never able to get MEPIS installed the way I wanted it....no way I'd run a VESA driver.