Linux Mint support on Lenovo Thinkpad t490s? [SOLVED]

[caetydid]

Dear Linux Mint community,

I consider buying a t490s and installing LM 18 on it. Officially this machine isn't certified for Ubuntu yet. I'd be happy if people who have this machine already can share some of their experience with how well its hardware is supported.

I am particularly interested in:

• How well does the clickpad work? Do buttons work?

• Is Wifi reliable and fast?

• Does sound work?

• Does suspend/resume work (S3 mode)?

• Any other issues worth to be mentioned?

thanks in advance!
caetydid

[Hoser Rob]

That "ubuintu certified" site isn't really that useful, it's not updated very often and due to the lack of backwards compatibility in Linux in general, there's no guarantee at all that a machine that used to work still will.

Best to find out what peripherals are on a machine (esp. graphics and wireless), then search "ubuntu <release> <peripheral name>". <release> would be 18.04 for Mint 19.x, 16.04 for 18.x. Esp. look for hits from ubuntuforums and askubuntu.

[caetydid]

I'd gladly search for this detailed Linux support if I had the exact info. Alas minor differences even exist in between different configurations of one model.
However, I've just ordered this machine and will update this thread as soon as I am finished with some first tests.

[Pierre]

that will come with win-10 ?
- did you order it with the 1 TB PCIe SSD ?

[caetydid]

Hi Pierre,

• without OS

• i5/512G SSD/16G RAM/NFC/FHD 400nits

I wish I had win10 to test properly but it is much cheaper without and I want to use Linux exclusively anyways

NB: not going to use NFC. I suspect that probably NFC variants have different clickpad hardware, that's why important to point out this out!

[deepakdeshp]

If possible make a live USB, boot from it and test it before you make a purchase.

[hattpa]

@ deepakdeshp sorry to be a bearer of bad news, but I tried on my old laptop to use live usb, everything worked fine. Installed Linux, and wifi dropped randomly, good way to test but no 100% guarantee

[caetydid]

sorry to be a bearer of bad news, but I tried on my old laptop to use live usb, everything worked fine. Installed Linux, and wifi dropped randomly,

What kernel did you use? I've read that this chipset would work best with kernels 4.16+

I've found a report of a user who uses Ubuntu 19.04 with t490s and Wifi should be fine (in German):
https://thinkpad-forum.de/threads/21830 ... ost2190255
AFAIK this should be kernel 5.0.

[GELvdH]

I can't speak for a Lenovo T490 but I have e T430s and installed mint 19.1 Cinnamon and it runs fine. I got wine running and it runs my Acemoney lite accounting software just fine. I have no problems with WiFi. Hope this helps a little.

[caetydid]

Hi dudes,

I've received the machine and gonna test it excessively. Meanwhile stay tuned under
https://github.com/katakombi/LinuxMint-t490s
to see my first results!
I'll update this readme within the next weeks.
cheers

[brooksly]

@caetydid Did you get sleep to function properly? If so could you share a bit about it?