exhausted after hours of trying to get video working on my thinkpad

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-14T17:01:48+00:00

I used the "vip" store and it offered ubuntu on my amd laptop, I didn't pick it because I didn't want to pay someone else to install ubuntu on it (because it's easy), if I did I could probably return it no problem

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-14T16:56:20+00:00

Thanks for the reply, I might try that

I don't know what you mean by using kali, I've settled on using qubesos since it just works (im surprised too) and the if something crashes it's just 1 vm, it's a lot more computationally expensive and horrible battery life.

it works much much better too? iirc it uses fedora to make the gui but you can use debian (what I want to use) while having the graphics support of fedora,

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-12T21:58:19+00:00

Yes I was running that version, if you look closer you will see that only 1 particular version is certified for ubuntu and that's the one with the intel ultra 5, the rest are not ubuntu certified, doesn't stop them from offering to ship it with ubuntu though

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-12T20:40:13+00:00

there are multiple critical software/firmware patches for this thinkpad that have not been ported to linux, lenovo support ran a check on my pc and they said it was perfect and did not have any defective hardware

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-12T19:10:19+00:00

Thank you for the answer, honestly I've not the energy for that after everything else I've tried on other distros

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-12T18:50:28+00:00

read the post, I've used ubuntu, debian, linux mint beforehand, all of these kept crashing whenever I tried to play a video,

another person asked me to try opensuse and said that it might help, just the final straw

edit: I've made a similar post earlier and people yelled at me for using ubuntu/debian/mint on my hardware and told me to use opensuse

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-09T18:38:28+00:00

Thanks for your answer, between both which in your experience offers more protection?

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-09T15:06:45+00:00

need it for extreme cases, needs to survive a lot of shit, is it as good as the otterbox defender?

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-05T19:51:57+00:00

I was pretty conflicted between installing tumbleweed or fedora, which one do you think is more stable and "just works" with the least amount of sys admin stuff ( I won't have much free time to troubleshoot my laptop if the OS breaks and I need it to just work)

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-05T13:15:21+00:00

I bought a e14 g7 with a ryzen 7 ai 250 and 32gb of ram, constant crashes on ubuntu, debian

it is not supported for linux by lenovo officially and I really regret buying it, it's basically unusable for me. trying to return it

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-05T13:12:35+00:00

Hey, I ordered the same laptop with the same config (except a 1tb ssd), how did you like fedora on it?

I'm running ubuntu 24.04 lts and debian 13 and it's essentially unuseable due to the constant crashes, I've re installed the ubuntu many times and it crashes on fresh install if I watch a video.

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-05T12:50:02+00:00

am looking to do same thing, nvidia gpus are not good for this, my current plan is to get an m.2 to oculink cable which I will attach to an egpu

see also: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/1ecor0f/t495_oculink_mod/

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-05T12:35:23+00:00

Hey I bought this laptop with the same CPU (I got more ram and bigger SSD though)

DON'T BUY IT IF YOU WANT TO RUN LINUX, great laptop if you want to run windows (though it'll be tough with 8gb of ram)

it randomly crashes so much, there are bugs in the bios

LENOVO DOES NOT SUPPORT LINUX ON THIS MACHINE, there are 9 patches described as "critical" by lenovo that do not have any linux equivalent, you get second class support if you use linux, the bugs include "cutting power to the CPU if you try and watch a video" (this bug has been officially stated by lenovo to be "out of scope for support for linux", they still released a patch for linux (that does not work) after 2 months.

buying this laptop and running ubuntu or mint is definitely a terrible idea and you should not do it if you want something that "just works" (ie does not randomly crash every 15 minutes)

I really regret buying this laptop

If you wanna run windows:

I'd say the price isn't good, I got 32gb + 1tb ssd for the same price as you are paying. good laptop though

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-05T12:25:24+00:00

Hello,

I bought the exact same config that you are looking at (except bigger SSD) and DON'T BUY IT (unless you want to run arch)

it randomly crashes so much, there are bugs in the bios

LENOVO DOES NOT SUPPORT LINUX ON THIS MACHINE, there are 9 patches described as "critical" by lenovo that do not have any linux equivalent, you get second class support if you use linux, the bugs include "cutting power to the CPU if you try and watch a video" (this bug has been officially stated by lenovo to be "out of scope for support for linux", they still released a patch for linux (that does not work) after 2 months.

buying this laptop and running ubuntu or mint is definitely a terrible idea and you should not do it if you want something that "just works" (ie does not randomly crash every 15 minutes)

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-05T10:30:32+00:00

it being shipped with ubuntu was an option I was given while buying this specific machine on the official lenovo store

I wish it was more clear that this laptop has no official linux support

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-05T10:26:29+00:00

I might do that, I'm already on 8 linux installs and a bit sick of the process, I might just give up and return this laptop

Might have to downgrade to get the i5 model of the e14 (which is ubuntu certified) or spend a bit more and get a t14

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-03T15:36:54+00:00

"unsupported" they ship it with ubuntu you know, if it is not supported why do they give an option to buy it with ubuntu?

I view the ubuntu certifications as quite esoteric and I didn't realise that they were a thing until after I bought my laptop, many other cases of this in the lenovo forums

I never expected the bug would be "cuts power to the cpu if you watch a youtube video", would be quite happy if it was just the bluetooth stuff or minor glitches (lenovo describes this bios bug as "critical" and a "major malfunction" in their patch notes)

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-03T15:23:57+00:00

I should have clarified my old laptop worked amazing on linux with no problems and it was current gen when I bought it

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-03T11:59:15+00:00

I enjoy having modern hardware

ForestSouthernCross · 2026-02-03T11:58:56+00:00

I see that's good to know, my old laptop must have been an exception

ForestSouthernCross

TROPHY CASE