[ale] Good Linux Laptop from Lenovo?

[Steve Litt]

On Mon, 7 Dec 2020 10:54:32 -0500
DJ-Pfulio via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

> On 12/6/20 10:54 PM, Steve Litt via Ale wrote:
> > Excellent idea, but the problem with modern "legacy free" laptops
> > is, by the time you buy a USB DVD drive, and a USB ether net, and
> > if you use a USB mouse because trackpads mess up your typing,
> > pretty soon you're all out of USB slots, unless you also carry a
> > USB hub. After awhile it's a Rube Goldberg Machine.  
> 
> They sell USB3-hub+GigE devices.  I've owned 2. 1 USB3 port used, 3
> added + GigE. But as Linux people we have to get lucky that the chips
> inside are supported. OTOH, I've been lucky twice for $22 devices ...
> but it is still another device to be carried. Amazon search "usb 3
> ethernet hub" for these. My laptop uses a device with AX88179 GigE
> NIC. ASIX Elec. Corp. iperf3 says over 920 Mbps.
> 
> Saw a few USBc "hub" devices a few days ago for $19. 

Where?

> They provide
> power, video, multiple usb ports of different plug types/speeds,
> ethernet, and plug in on the side of a laptop. "Vanmass 7-in-1 USB
> Hub w/ 87W PD, USB C, HDMI 2.0, Dual USB A 3.0, SD Card Slot" is one,
> but there are lots of these things. Note the missing ethernet, so
> have a list when shopping.
> 
> Another option is a tiny travel wifi router.  

Travel routers have been my backup, both for no-Linux wifi systems and
for hotels to whose wifis I can't connect via Linux. But if your
laptop's wifi doesn't work, and you have no ethernet, how can a travel
router help you?

> I've done that as well
> with one about half the size of a raspberry pi running dd-wrt. That
> works best if you have wifi-only extra devices like some video
> streaming sticks so you setup 1 wired connection, but have all your
> other devices connect to your router (with a little firewall).  
> 
> In the end, I stopped using wifi, stopped bringing other devices that
> needed connections, got a long HDMI cable and plug that into hotel
> TVs from the laptop doing playback for video entertainment.

Is your HDMI cable one of those "ethernet also" HDMI cables, and are
you able to get the Internet via such an arrangement?

> As for booting thumb drives - they almost all "just work" but
> sometimes there are some devices that don't.  Once you know those,
> removing them from your rotation.  99% of the time I use 'dd' to
> shove an ISO onto a flash drive, but I suppose what magical dance is
> needed could be related to how the distro is packaged.  My normal
> distros are Ubuntu-based and they use a hybrid Mac/uefi/legacy
> partition format in their distros so they boot from anything
> (almost).  

That's a Ubuntu based anecdote. A lot of distros don't work that way. 

Also, I downloaded Ubuntu Desktop, and that thing won't boot to strict
UEFI, either from a CD or from a thumb. I made the thumb drive with
Ubuntu's bootable flash drive creator, referencing the Ubuntu Desktop
ISO I downloaded. Neither dd nor ddrescue produced a bootable thumb for
that ISO: I had to use Ubuntu's bootable flash drive creator.
 
SteveT

Steve Litt 
Autumn 2020 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive