this post was submitted on 03 May 2024
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I'm thinking of buying a Lenovo Duet 3 for running linux. Which device would have better compatibility? (pawb.social)
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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There's two models - the Duet 3 which comes with a Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 @ 2.55 GHz CPU, and the 3i which comes with a Intel Celeron N4020. I would rather use the Duet 3, due to the cover, and since I am already familiar with the feel of the device due to having owned a Surface Pro 4, but I'd like to choose whichever works best for running Linux.

Edit: Just for additional information I'll be using it as a note-taking tablet with xournal++, not for any heavy tasks

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

Forget Linux for a second. What you need to be aware is that both the variants come with only 4GB soldered-on RAM and eMMC storage. That means, even if you do manage to get Linux going on them, it's going to be super slow for any sort of practical Web/GUI needs. 4GB RAM is barely enough to run a browser these days, and if you tack on a full-fledged DE and multitasking with other apps, you'll be pushing memory pages to the disk (ie, swapping). And when that happens, you'll really feel the slowness. Trust me, you don't want to be swapping to eMMC - that's super old tech, something like 3x slower than UFS, which in turn a LOT slower than m.2 NVMe (the current standard used in "proper" laptops/convertibles).

Also, consider this for perspective - even budget smartphones these days come with at least 6GB RAM and UFS storage. So this laptop/convertible - a device meant for productivity - is a complete ripoff.

If money is an issue, then just buy a used laptop (from eBay, or whatever you guys use there). If you're aiming for good Linux compatibility then ThinkPads are a safe bet. But since you're after a Surface-like device, then you could just get any older Surface device. Why settle for an imitation when you can get the real thing? In any case, most older x86 laptops from mainstream brands should work fine in Linux in general, just do a google for it to see if there are any quirks or issues.

Regardless of your choice, avoid the Duet 3. 4GB RAM is completely unacceptable for a laptop in 2024.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

I have a Surface Pro 4 that is riddled with software issues that Microsoft didn't patch and hardware issues that left the device with under three hours of battery after just a few years, so I'm not very trusting of them, as well as the larger hardware incompatibilities, but it looks like it may come to one of those or an ipad :/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Take a look at the Lenovo Yoga models. There are very well built thinkpads out there that fold over and have a stylus + touchscreen

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I have had two Lenovo models as my last two laptops, including the one I'm on now which is a Yoga 9i. I have buyers remorse so much for both of these and stupidly got pulled in by low prices and a long list of features. They're slow, unupgradable, both had issues where i needed to send them back for repair as they turned off randomly which was very frustrating with lots of lost work, and then lots of time without the laptop..

I think after thinkpads their overall quality has hit the pan

There's 23 pages of people with these issues and very little support from Lenovo on this thread: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-S-Series-ThinkPad-Yoga-and-Twist-Laptops/Lenovo-Yoga-9i-keeps-freezing/m-p/5087025 And another 3 pages here: https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-Yoga-Series-Notebooks/Laptop-randomly-turns-off/m-p/3840927?page=3

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Hm well, I caried a Yoga l390 in a Backpack for 3.5 years and opened+closed it many times a day. That thing is now 5 years old. It's not being used daily anymore, but still multiple times a week. And it still works perfectly in every regard. Only the hinges became a bit less stiff and the battery capacity went down a bit. But those are a given with that age and amount of charge cycles.

Since 1.5 years I have the pleasure to work fulltime with a fully specced x1 Yoga, that also has to go into the backpack every day. Of course that's not very old, but it also has zero problems, only the silver paint at the corners started to wear off slowly from carrying it around.

The stylus that stows in the case is annoyingly small (and you need a seperate normal sized one for extended writing), but other than that it has all been very positive for me.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (3 children)

The entry that I found had 8GB, and I'm only going to use it to run xournal+ so I don't need a lot.

Edit: fuck the description says 4GB

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Hmm, so I've had a look and it seems like Xournal++ only supports x86_64. Which means that if you get the Snapdragon version, you'll need run it using an x86 emulator like FEXEmu or Box64, and this will affect the performance and may also introduce compatibility issues. So you'll need to do your own research and find out if someone's managed to run it on ARM / Snapdragon 7c, and if there's any issues etc.

You could get the Celeron version instead, but personally I can't recommend a Celeron to anyone in good faith, so you'll have to make your own decision sorry.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Xournal++ supports other architectures. They might not have compiled binaries for other architectures ready to be downloaded on their GitHub release, but it's packaged on at least postmarketOS (i.e. Alpine Linux) edge (I have it on my "Chromebook") and Debian Stable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

I have a Samsung Chromebook that also has ARM SoC, 4 GB of soldered RAM and eMMC storage. I installed postmarketOS on it, with desktop KDE Plasma 6, and with 4 GB of ZRAM, it is definitely usable - I could run Xournal++ without much problem. It's not butter smooth, the scrolling can be stuttery, but it should be enough for light notetaking. Granted, my SoC is older and weaker (RK3399), so your mileage may vary.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

8GB is enough but not nice. 12GB is my sweet spot for normal tasks, everything above is for virtual machines etc.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'll start this by saying I'm not familiar with either model, but as a general rule, always go x86 when you can. The Intel processor is going to be much better supported. You might get the snapdragon version to run, but it likely isn't supported by mainline Linux.

That being said, touch screen support on Linux is improving rapidly, but still isn't quite there. Make sure you're aware of the user experience before buying so you won't be disappointed.

Also, my unsolicited 2 cents, I would try to avoid buying lenovo. I've had the unfortunate responsibility of fixing a few of their products (an all-in-one and a few laptops, including a new thinkpad) and can confidently say their reliability, and repairability have greatly diminished. They use cheap parts and are in general, poorly designed.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Thanks so much for the input. I've read a few people got this to work so I know that it is possible.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Not sure your budget, but you might be interested in one of these https://us.starlabs.systems/pages/starlite

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Wow looks nice. At least it's a far better price than a surface pro. Thanks for the option!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

And they support Linux out of the Box.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

4 GB of RAM is enough only if you install something like Debian+XFce (not gnome/kde/cinnamon or ubuntu/fedora), and only if you only use up to 3-4 tabs of web browser at the same time along 1 more app. Basically, you will need to always be conscious about the things you have open. But it is doable if you are the conscious user type like I am. Definitely not enough for things like 4k video editing, or multiple apps open with many tabs open each. Also, always go for the x86 version, it's better supported.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

The biggest crapshoot with the Snapdragons is the graphics support. I'd stick with the Celeron unless you can find comments somewhere with the exact model and no compatibility issues with the graphics.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Snapdragon is an ARM CPU which means if you can find a distro to run on it, it'll likely be an Android custom ROM, whereas Celeron is x86 and should run most Linux distros without issue.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Lol, this is not even remotely accurate. I run fleets of arm64 machines all over the place. Pretty much every distro out there builds arm64/aarch64 packages. Wherever you read this from needs to be shut down.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Yeah linux support for ARM SOCs is not ideal. There might be some fork of the kernel working with specific proprietary driver blobs. But in a few years its basically abandonware.

RISC-V is what we should try to make happen as a replacement for x86, instead of yet another proprietary IP.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The snapdragon is for the Chromebook model, so it is already running Linux, but it it just not very compatible?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Chromebooks use a customized Linux kernel with often proprietary code included from the manufacturer. Same thing as Android in that sense.

Upstream Linux, using mostly open-source code, does not have these bits of proprietary code in most cases. This means that ARM devices are frequently missing some drivers under mainline Linux, so things like TouchPad, wifi, or even GPU might be partially or fully unsupported.

Armbian Linux supports a large number of devices using mainline Linux with some tweaks to it pre-configured, but typically you're not going to get every feature of the hardware supported until several years after its release (like 5+).

x86 on the other hand usually will just work out of the box, especially Lenovo laptops.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

If you are not techy stay away from Chromebooks. mrchromebox.tech offers custom firmware which allows you to run real googlefree Linux on them, but still.

I havent found one that is worth the price. They are often unrepairable, have soldered everything and on purpose too low specs. Like 128GB of storage is rare, and that is a minimum for anything real. 16GB RAM is almost never available.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

This is not true at all. There are tons of Linux Distros running natively on ARM.

Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.