sunrat Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 I resisted getting a notebook/laptop before this and never really needed one. However I'm going overseas in a few weeks so figured it could be useful. It's a Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e, yep the 11.6" one targeted for schools. Touch screen with 360° hinges so it can be used like a tablet. The current model retails at ~$AU920 and this one is about 18 months old for which I paid $AU395 (that's about 2 nickels in US currency with the current abysmal exchange rate ). CPU is Celeron 1.6/2.2GHz, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, comes with Win 10 Home. So of course I put Debian Buster on it when I got home which was mainly smooth with a couple of UEFI setup tweaks. Was very tricky to actually hit the button at the right time to get into setup though. I basically cloned the package list from my production PC. It thought it would be quite slow with such a modest processor but it's amazingly sprightly. It was a spur-of-the-moment buy and I was having second thoughts on the way home but I'm quite pleased with it now. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlim Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 Looks good! Enjoy the trip and your new toy. Yes, when you see the need for something, you can justify a purchase. (I never thought I'd want a smart phone until I had no router for more than a week and only 1 computer could go on the internet at once. I saw the need to get on the internet at home because I really didn't want to go to a hotspot early in the morning or late at night. It's also handy if the electric is off for more than 3 hours and the modem and router quit because the UPS battery is flat.) I traveled in the past with my 7" eeepc running linux. It was slow but I didn't care because I basically used it to check email. Now I'd probably grab my 10.1" android tablet and perhaps a folding bluetooth keyboard. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 Nice, sunrat! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichase Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 Great looking setup Sunrat and congrats on what seems like a good price. Also wishing you the best on your upcoming trip. How big is your main monitor behind the new laptop? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 Very nice Sunrat. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 17 minutes ago, ichase said: How big is your main monitor behind the new laptop? Looks like a 32" monitor (one of mine is that size). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichase Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 6 minutes ago, securitybreach said: Looks like a 32" monitor (one of mine is that size). I want one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 Just now, ichase said: I want one Well, you make that big money so just buy one or four.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ichase Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 Just now, securitybreach said: Well, you make that big money so just buy one or four.... Yeah the days of making decent money (or actually being able to keep it) went to the way side..... Now just hangin' on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 A laptop always comes in handy on a trip - especially a holiday. I've been taking along my Thinkpad T430 lately. It's a bit on the heavy side, but it is waaay faster than my old Toshiba netbook. It's handy for backing up digital photos (yes I am one of the last dinosaurs who takes along a camera.) On a cruise I usually get the minimum Internet package for email and light web surfing but the Toshiba still drives my wife crazy with its 2 GB of RAM. Better to tote along the Thinkpad. I love to take the T430 out to the lounge near the IT office on the ship. Inevitably one of the computer guys comes along and asks if they can help out - what am I running on my Thinkpad. An answer of "Debian Buster" usually gets them moving away rapidly. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 Nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted February 26, 2020 Author Share Posted February 26, 2020 5 hours ago, zlim said: I traveled in the past with my 7" eeepc running linux. It was slow but I didn't care because I basically used it to check email. Now I'd probably grab my 10.1" android tablet and perhaps a folding bluetooth keyboard. I have a EeePC900 (9") which would probably still suit fine for travel, but the keyboard broke. I replaced it but some of the keys, mainly F/Function keys don't work and the battery is fairly much toast. Runs AntiX nicely though. 4 hours ago, ichase said: Great looking setup Sunrat and congrats on what seems like a good price. Also wishing you the best on your upcoming trip. How big is your main monitor behind the new laptop? Thanks! Monitor is actually a 43" Sony UHD (4K) TV. Image quality on it is excellent even for reading text up close. 1 hour ago, raymac46 said: A laptop always comes in handy on a trip - especially a holiday. I've been taking along my Thinkpad T430 lately. It's a bit on the heavy side, but it is waaay faster than my old Toshiba netbook. It's handy for backing up digital photos (yes I am one of the last dinosaurs who takes along a camera.) On a cruise I usually get the minimum Internet package for email and light web surfing but the Toshiba still drives my wife crazy with its 2 GB of RAM. Better to tote along the Thinkpad. I love to take the T430 out to the lounge near the IT office on the ship. Inevitably one of the computer guys comes along and asks if they can help out - what am I running on my Thinkpad. An answer of "Debian Buster" usually gets them moving away rapidly. Yes it is a bit heavier than I'd like (1.5kg) but I want Debian and trying to de-googlify my life a bit, but Android tablet w/keyboard was a serious option. I did just buy a new camera for the trip yesterday as well - Panasonic Lumix TZ220 (it has other names in other countries). Blew me away checking out all its amazing features on YouTube etc. Pick it up tomorrow. I sold my Wideye iSavi broadband satellite modem for $1,000 the other day, only spent $1,600 of that so far. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 (edited) Lumix TZ220 is called ZS200 here and certainly would be on my bucket list if I didn't already have a ZS50. The ZS200 came out a couple of years after I got the ZS50. The one you have has a much larger sensor that should give you better low light performance. Mine has a longer zoom which I admit I have used in the past - all the way out to a 35mm equivalent of 720 mm. These lightweight travel zooms are great. I think the ZS50 weighs around 250g. Here's an orchid from Barbados photographed with the ZS50. And this is a 720mm pic of a Spanish patrol boat that was shadowing our cruise ship in the Mediterranean. Edited February 26, 2020 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted February 26, 2020 Author Share Posted February 26, 2020 That orchid shot is beautiful. I plan to take lots of flower and garden photos as my trip is based around visiting gardens like Kew Gardens and The Royal Greenhouses of Laeken. I actually walked into the shop planning to buy TZ110 but the TZ220 has a rubberised hand and thumb grip whereas the TZ110 doesn't, plus 15x zoom compared to 10x. It just feels better. They both had decent discounts, $150 off retail for theTZ220. I upsold myself, shop assistant didn't have to say a thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 The front grip is very useful - otherwise you are trying to take photos with a soap bar. I always slip the wrist strap on just in case, even with a decent grip. Been to Kew myself and it's well worth it. Probably a bit early for the Queen Mary rose garden and tulips at Kensington Palace but maybe you can get inside the Orangery. One off the beaten path location for some great photos is Camden Town. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted February 27, 2020 Author Share Posted February 27, 2020 Just about have this notebook how I want it now. Touchpad tap working, wifi working, conky set up, Firefox synced. All the hardware worked out of the box so far including the touch screen. Helps to use the non-free firmware version of Debian netinstall iso. I even worked out that kdeconnect will work between any 2 devices on a network, not just phone and computer. Pretty neat and very handy for this setup. This thing has almost never been used and looks brand new. I checked with smartctl and the system drive shows only 1142 power-on hours. I was pretty happy when i managed to install Debian on this without much fuss, now I'm really impressed! roger@yoga-brain:~$ inxi -Fz System: Host: yoga-brain Kernel: 4.19.0-8-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.14.5 Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) Machine: Type: Convertible System: LENOVO product: 20G80001AU v: ThinkPad Yoga 11e 3rd Gen serial: <filter> Mobo: LENOVO model: Intel powered classmate PC v: SDK0J40700 WIN serial: <filter> UEFI: LENOVO v: R0AET37W (1.20) date: 01/19/2018 Battery: ID-1: BAT1 charge: 41.7 Wh condition: 41.7/42.0 Wh (99%) CPU: Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Celeron N3150 bits: 64 type: MCP L2 cache: 1024 KiB Speed: 1011 MHz min/max: 480/2080 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 625 2: 976 3: 936 4: 1102 Graphics: Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.4 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1366x768~60Hz OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 400 (Braswell) v: 4.5 Mesa 18.3.6 Audio: Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.19.0-8-amd64 Network: Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169 IF: enp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> Device-2: Intel Wireless 7265 driver: iwlwifi IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter> Drives: Local Storage: total: 119.24 GiB used: 5.79 GiB (4.9%) ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Samsung model: MZNTY128HDHP-000L1 size: 119.24 GiB Partition: ID-1: / size: 56.59 GiB used: 5.76 GiB (10.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 ID-2: swap-1 size: 4.14 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda6 Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 38.0 C mobo: N/A Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0 Info: Processes: 159 Uptime: 45m Memory: 3.68 GiB used: 971.5 MiB (25.8%) Shell: bash inxi: 3.0.32 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted February 27, 2020 Share Posted February 27, 2020 Very cool. I didn't know that it had a touchscreen. Nice that it worked out of the box too. I have yet to have a laptop with a touchscreen. Mostly because I wouldn't really have much of a use for one and most of the ones that I see have a display like a mirror. I have looked at the Yoga series in the past but never pulled the trigger. Thanks for confirming that they are nice little linux machines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted February 27, 2020 Share Posted February 27, 2020 My Lenovo Flex 15-2D has touchscreen and the grandkids like it. I'm more a mouse/keyboard type of guy. I like the "Intel Centrino" type notebooks as you are pretty sure everything will work with Linux out of the box. Looks like you have a good travel companion there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted February 27, 2020 Share Posted February 27, 2020 (edited) Here is a pic of the Camden Town locks taken in 2013. I didn't have the ZS50 back then but you get the idea. Edited February 27, 2020 by raymac46 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted February 27, 2020 Share Posted February 27, 2020 (edited) A bit off topic here but I do hope you get time to try out your new camera before embarking on a major holiday. I personally use the Lumix in P mode. Because the lens is a bit on the slow side there isn't much sense of using manual as you don't have a huge aperture range to work with. Although you can shoot in RAW I just use the JPEG Fine setting which is good for most situations. Lumix has an excellent Macro setting which you can use to get those flower photos in the greenhouse. I avoid flash except to fill in the case of backlit subjects. I don't use Face Detection unless I want to track a person in video - not very often. The normal AF is fast and quite reliable. My ZS50 sometimes takes its time focusing in low light such as inside a church. You will probably do better with the TZ220 since you have a larger sensor. Edited February 27, 2020 by raymac46 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted February 27, 2020 Share Posted February 27, 2020 7 hours ago, sunrat said: Just about have this notebook how I want it now. Touchpad tap working, wifi working, conky set up, Firefox synced. All the hardware worked out of the box so far including the touch screen. Helps to use the non-free firmware version of Debian netinstall iso. WHAT?! Debian has such a thing? I'd be interested in reading a thread that has information on THIS!!! When I made the decision to switch to Debian as my base distro, I knew I was moving from "user-friendly" (Ubuntu) to "do it yourself" (Debian). User-friendly probes the hardware, finds appropriate drivers and offers to install them, even if proprietary. I was mentally prepared to manually do things the way Debian wants it done, but I wasn't prepared for the lack of non-free options. I'm not a fan of proprietary software, and all things being equal, I'd prefer the open-source and free version; but the rub is...things aren't always equal. And I'm not a purist...if it does the job better, I'll choose the non-free version. And I'll gladly switch to the open-source version just as soon as it reaches feature-parity for the function that caused me to consider non-free. But I digress. I've felt like Debian is nudging me to make selections THEY prefer, because "that is how Debian does things". I'd be interested in knowing more about these non-free options of Debian. After you've enjoyed your vacation, perhaps you'll start a new thread with such a topic? Please?! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted February 27, 2020 Share Posted February 27, 2020 (edited) https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/ This is mostly to get wifi working so you don't need a wire to netinstall. Edited February 27, 2020 by raymac46 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted February 27, 2020 Share Posted February 27, 2020 39 minutes ago, Hedon James said: I knew I was moving from "user-friendly" (Ubuntu) to "do it yourself" (Debian). "do it yourself"?? Ha! Debian actually has an installer. If you want do it yourself, install Arch... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted February 27, 2020 Share Posted February 27, 2020 25 minutes ago, securitybreach said: "do it yourself"?? Ha! Debian actually has an installer. If you want do it yourself, install Arch... haha! TRUE! But if Ubuntu is an automatic and Debian is a stick; then Arch is for mechanics who build their own cars from the chassis up. (and Gentoo is for folks who fabricate their own metal) LOL! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted February 27, 2020 Share Posted February 27, 2020 2 hours ago, Hedon James said: haha! TRUE! But if Ubuntu is an automatic and Debian is a stick; then Arch is for mechanics who build their own cars from the chassis up. (and Gentoo is for folks who fabricate their own metal) LOL! Pretty much Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted February 27, 2020 Author Share Posted February 27, 2020 The non-free Debian installer just includes a few packages of firmware, mainly firmware-linux-nonfree to help get wifi, graphics etc. working. intel- or amd-microcode is advisable to have as well and I think that's included along with firmware-realtek. Ray's link above will get you there. Technically they are "unofficial" images but are hosted on debian.org nevertheless. There's not a lot of info about them on the interwebz but there's not much to say - they are just the same as the official images with a few firmware packages added. https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#nonfree I always install Debian using the netinstall w/nonfree, deselecting "Desktop environment" and "-servers" during install and subsequently installing a minimal desktop with the package kde-plasma-desktop from the cli login. I dislike those kitchen sink installers where there are always dozens of applications I never use, preferring to selectively install them as I need them apart from a handful I always install from starters. This time I just copied the package list from my other production system so that package customisation bit was a piece of cake. I'll post those commands here again for posterity: to get the package list from the source system: dpkg --get-selections |awk '!/deinstall/' | awk '{print $1}' >package-selections Then to install on the new system: apt install $(cat package-selections) I did have a couple of 3rd-party repositories to configure and some manually installed packages so had to edit the list slightly before the install command completed smoothly, but basically it was a piece of cake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted February 28, 2020 Share Posted February 28, 2020 (edited) I used the non-free ISO before to install Debian on laptops with the Broadcom or Realtek chipset. When I set up Debian on my T430 I assumed since it was Intel all the way I wouldn't need it. Big mistake. Turns out the Thinkpad had Intel wifi that needed firmware, so I hooked up an Ethernet cable to my router and installed the system with the basic Debian netinstall. Then I installed the firmware from the non-free repo. After a reboot I was good to go. But I could have saved myself some aggravation if I'd used the non-free ISO. Edited February 28, 2020 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted February 28, 2020 Share Posted February 28, 2020 I'm with you guys on this -- the non-free iso is the way to go, for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
securitybreach Posted February 28, 2020 Share Posted February 28, 2020 It is kind of a must of Debian. Whereas on Arch, the nvidia driver is the only non-free thing that I use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunrat Posted February 28, 2020 Author Share Posted February 28, 2020 7 hours ago, securitybreach said: It is kind of a must of Debian. Whereas on Arch, the nvidia driver is the only non-free thing that I use. Please post output of vrms Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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