Re: [DebianOn] laptop for development with hibernation? [ThinkPad W550s]
On Thu, 2 Mar 2017 08:55:26 +0100
Stanislaw Findeisen <fixpoint.combinator@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi folks
>
> I have a simple task: find a developer (programming) laptop which works
> reasobably well with current Debian Stable. I am particularly interested
> in smooth hibernation and WiFi as I am often on the go.
>
> I can see DebianOn: https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/ but it
> is very fragmented. For example the latest Dell XPS to claim it has
> hibernation working is a 2013 model:
> https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Dell/Dell%20XPS%2013%209333 .
I'm runninng mostly stable, with some backports and unstable, and
vanilla kernels self-built from upstream sources, on a ThinkPad W550s.
* WiFi works well, currently with 'firmware-iwlwifi' from backports
(ISTR having had trouble with disconnects and / or other flakiness
using stable's 'firmware-iwlwifi').
* suspend-to-ram worked out of the box, but only via the Xfce4
mechanisms - the Fn key doesn't do anything. [I have not tried other
mechanisms.] [I haven't tried suspend-to-disk, since suspend-to-ram is
sufficient for me, although I suppose s2disk is better from a security
perspective, insofar as one is using full disk encryption.]
* In general, some of the Fn keys work, and some don't: screen
brightness up/down work, but mute, volume up/down, suspend, and
hibernate don't.
* My version of the W550s has a "high DPI" screen: 2880*1620 ('3K').
Support for high DPI in stable is pretty spotty: installation went
fine, but the console uses such tiny fonts that it is barely readable.
Xfce4, too, needed tweaking to render it usable. In general, you can
search the web to find the various tweaks that will improve usability,
but it's a pain - the information is scattered, rarely authoritative,
and often outdated (and as is often the case, much of the better
documentation comes from other distros, such as Arch).
* Battery charging control needs the 'tlp' and 'acpi-call' packages
(the older 'tp-smapi' software no longer works on recent ThinkPads)
- not well documented on ThinkWiki, which seems these days to be geared
more toward older ThinkPads (I know, it's a Wiki, and I should update it
with all this stuff ...)
* This is a big one: support for the integrated Intel graphics (5500)
is incomplete / buggy in stable's X packages. I had terrible screen
tearing (and possibly other problems), which seem to have gone away
with the installation of backport packages. [The machine also has a
Quadro K620M, but I haven't tried it yet.]
Celejar
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