Comment by pentamassiv
4 months ago
If you are thinking about getting a Tuxedo, I suggest to get something else. I got one because they promised fwupd support, upstreamed drivers and maybe coreboot support. None of that is working even years afterwards. People from the kernel got so fed up with them, they considered blacklisting them [1]. That seemed like a wakeup call as they now at least started with upstreaming drivers.
If you want to change some settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application. It's so bad, volunteers created an alternative. Even they are getting tired of Tuxedo though [2]
The device is also not repairable at all. I had an issue with my screen and they gave me a quote of ~200€+ to repair it. I'm sure I could fix it myself for a lot less, but no parts are available and no instructions.
I hope they improve, but for now I'm disillusioned and would not buy it again.
[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/TUXEDO-Drivers-Taint-Patches
[2] https://aaronerhardt.github.io/blog/posts/tuxedo_rs_update/
From your 2nd link:
The entire software stack of TUXEDO is tightly integrated, instead of working on a generic solution.
That sounds like the same situation with smartphones, which are nearly all ARM but every SoC or variation of one is different enough that the software is customised for each one.
If you want to change some settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application.
WTF. I thought Android being Java was already going too far, but they seem to have gone to a whole new level of insanity.
Android is not Java
While sadly true, it is close enough for a Java 17 LTS subset, even though it is Google's .NET with Kotlin having a C# like role.
Didn't went out the same way as with J++, unfortunately.
I'm a happy user of my second Tuxedo laptop after using the first for over 7 years, repairing several parts. I found their support very responsive and spare parts affordable. Your points are valid though. If you don't like their custom stuff, the device also works fine with a stock Linux install (Ubuntu in my case).
They're also the only OEM that replied to me when I was trying to reverse engineer a similar laptop to theirs. I think that alone should put them into a league of their own. Only two companies have ever properly replied to me when I asked about source code or hardware documentation: one is a chinese company, the other is Tuxedo.
Frankly it's bizarre that a Linux focused vendor thinks it's better to keep their device drivers outside of the kernel. Why would I buy a rebadged Clevo laptop from Tuxedo where I'm stuck either running their special Tuxedo distro or fiddling around with compiling kernel modules on other distros, when I could buy a much better laptop for the same price from a vendor who doesn't even advertise Linux support and get full out of the box hardware support on any distro I choose?
I bought a Tuxedo machine. While the situation is not perfect (I had to install driver packages on Fedora), everything works perfectly - including standby.
My last machine was a Thinkpad, and I never got it to work nearly as well. Standby mostly didn't work and when docking it, external screens would be arranged incorrectly unless I rebooted. USB ports also did not activate when docked, so I had a script for resetting the USB devices. Sometimes a new kernel version would come along and cause it to start freezing.
I did check out other laptops before buying the tuxedo (t14s g6 amd, zenbook s14), but according to the information available at the time, those machines had lots of issues. They were also more expensive.
Therefore I'm very curious about which laptop that you think is both better and cheaper than tuxedo, and has full hardware support out of the box?
I have a tuxedo 14" i7-12700H with 3050. And it is terrible. Specs are nice, price was hefty, but in the end it does not deliver. Battery is horrible, charging is disruptive, power budget is not enough. All stems from the nvidia card that I paid serious bucks to get included but it makes a decent laptop into a very bad one as the power delivery system just does not seem to be able to cope with it.
Anyway I would go with FRAMEWORK there. Sadly they did not deliver to my address when I was in the market, but now they do.
Hopefully latest Tuxedo does have better hardware support? Mine has problems with charging, usb-c charging is even worse (slow charge normal performance or ok charge and 5W throttling which makes all cores go at 1GHz), battery saving feature that hides 10% of battery capacity in firmware etc. They also stopped delivering any firmware updates after a few months.
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Which thinkpad was the one you had so many issues with, and which dock? I’ve had a few issues with my caldigit ts3 and ryzen 7840 p14s thinkpad but on the whole everything works pretty well. Worst issue has been a dumb regression with the Qualcomm ath12k firmware that wasn’t backed out for months.
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I think it was Tuxedo that accidentally ended up with GPLv3 drivers and no ability to relicense them.
Which means they can't be upstreamed because GPLv3 is not compatible with GPLv2 (for the same reason CDDLv1.0 is considered incompatible).
They either need to track every copyright from the contractors (who AFAIK didn't sign over licensing to Tuxedo) to relicense the code, or write drivers again from scratch.
That was a problem at some point, but I think most of the GPL3-to-GPL2-relicense-issues have been solved by now?
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> If you want to change some settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application.
That is unfortunate. I hoped they were more like System76.
Having to use their specific drivers is a bit annoying, but I honestly prefer that over drivers that dont work or dont exist at all. I really hope they can bring their stuff upstream at one point, but I can't deny that using their laptops hasn't been good experiences.
So Qualcomm continues its Qualcomm behavior.
I think it's great that a company tries to support ARM Linux and brings what looks to me like a Linux first ARM Laptop.
> If you want to change some settings oft the device, you need to use their terrible Electron application.
> It's so bad, volunteers created an alternative.
Years ago I wrote my own Linux user space driver for the keyboard on my Clevo based laptop. The Clevo application was so terrible I reverse engineered it and made my own Linux free software replacement.
https://github.com/matheusmoreira/ite-829x
It seems some Tuxedo laptops have the same keyboard. Maybe Tuxedo users will find it useful.
The first link does not mention blacklisting, just resolving a license compatibility issue.
"The patches check for the gxtp7380, ite_8291, ite_8291_lb, ite_8297, ite_829x, stk8321, tuxedo_compatibility_check, tuxedo_io, tuxedo_nb02_nvidia_power_ctrl, tuxedo_nb04_keyboard, tuxedo_nb04_wmi_ab, tuxedo_nb04_wmi_bs, tuxedo_nb04_sensors, tuxedo_nb04_power_profiles, tuxedo_nb04_kbd_backlight, tuxedo_nb05_keyboard, tuxedo_nb05_kbd_backlight, tuxedo_nb05_power_profiles, tuxedo_nb05_ec, tuxedo_nb05_sensors, tuxedo_nb05_fan_control, tuxi_acpi, tuxedo_tuxi_fan_control, clevo_wmi, tuxedo_keyboard, clevo_acpi, and uniwill_wmi kernel modules and will taint if they are present."
That's not what I would describe as "resolving a license compatibility issue"
> ite_829x
Huh, so Tuxedo developed their own ITE 829x kernel driver.
I have a Clevo based laptop, similar to the ones they sell. Years ago I reverse engineered the keyboard's features and wrote a user space driver.
https://github.com/matheusmoreira/ite-829x
I interacted with Tuxedo quite a few times back then while I was figuring this stuff out. They even sent me source code for a pre-release version of their Electron app. It didn't help much in the end but they proved to be much nicer and more responsive than other manufacturers and even Clevo itself.
Wish they'd emailed me about their driver. I could have helped develop it, especially if they had given me documentation.
I briefly explored the idea of turning it into a kernel module and contributing it to the kernel. While reading Linux driver source code, some comments gave me the impression they'd prefer code remained in user space if possible. Since I already had a working user space driver, I decided not to contribute it.
I wrote the above program because Clevo's app was Windows only and so aggravating to use it defies description. Looks like Tuxedo ran into the same problem with their Electron app, if the complaints in this thread are any indication... Déjà vu.
I would describe it as exactly "resolving a license compatibility issue". Taint in linux kernel refers to marking this kernel as not supported, which often just means not purely GPLv2 compatible anymore. Proprietary AMD and nVidia drivers also cause taints. https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/118117/251582
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It is, specifically because Tuxedo licensed their modules as GPLv3, instead of GPLv2 (the module license declaration only has 'GPL', to make this confusing), causing a mild license compatibility issue, and since they've had external contributions, it's not so easy for them to fix it. And it's not a ban, just a flag that gets set.
Very informative, thank you. I was about to buy one of their products but this made me pause.
What you think would be the alternative in Europe ?
Basically the same things happened to my tuxedo also. With the addition of having to change batteries once a year, because it would drop to half it's factory charge, which wasn't really sufficient. I also gave up on them when they wanted so much money for a screen change (which died after about 3-4 years).
I've replaced it with the new framework 13 inch, which so far works well, but I've only had it for 4-5 months. ( well, but not perfect, because the new AMD AI CPU has issues with suspend on linux)
That's a shame, I got a 13 w/ the previous non-AI AMD 7 7840U in April, and it's been rock-solid running Pop_OS. I wondered at the time if I should have waited for the newer CPUs...
at least with framework you know exactly how much the replacement parts will cost ahead of time.
> issues with suspend on linux
Oh? I'd seriously considered buying the 13 w/this AMD CPU and I guess I naively thought it would be ideal. What sort of problems with suspend are you seeing?
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Slimbook (Spanish OEM) basically sells the same ODM designs as Tuxedo and is an option. They have a few cobranded (KDE etc) versions that contribute to the development teams.
Otherwise at this point I believe the Framework laptops have pretty solid Linux support and is a good option if you're ok w/ so-so battery life.
There is StarLab https://starlabs.systems although they don’t make ARM laptops if that’s what you are asking for.
While StarLabs has shipped products before, I'd be careful with them. That StarFighter laptop was supposed to ship years ago, and I don't think any have been delivered yet. Here's a Reddit thread [1] from three years ago saying delivery would be in a few months.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxhardware/comments/yjuahx/star_...
Don’t bother with these. In my eyes the gold standard for Linux laptops is Framework or Lenovo.
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Unfortunately I don't know about a good alternative from Europe. I'd probably get a Framework if my device stops working. They seem to work hard at upstreaming things and use Linux standards. They also connected with the GNOME foundation, so there might be some collaboration in the future
https://entroware.com from the UK gets mentioned here and there, but I think they don't do any software development at all, and only repackage OEM laptops.
I am running a tuxedo since 6 years and I am still happy with it. Had to use their support once to replace the cooling assembly because one of the fan bearings started to ger noisy after 5 years of 24/7 use, the replacement was 100 Euros for the whole copper+heatpipe+two fan assembly. The machine is still outperforming many other machines that exist today and the sceeen is one of the best I have seen (OLED).
Software side was smooth sailing as well.
NovaCustom had a discussion on here recently and uses dasharo coreboot.
You are right that tuxedo has some issues. But also take into account price of their notebooks. Even lenovo, hp, dell etc. are not without issues in the similar price category. I take it as cheap HW for advanced users.
But you are right that not having drivers upstream is really strange decision.
Seconded. Stay away from Tuxedo. You get better hardware support with many other vendors.
Which ones? System76 presumably, but do you get better support from any of the mainstream vendors?
There are parts in the industry that are not meant for end users. I service copiers and printers. The fixing unit is not meant to be installed by a handyman, thats why you dont get to buy it. You can cook yourself, it works with 230V.... Toner and drum unit are sold to customers.
Respectfully, nothing about that applies to a laptop. This has been well proven over the years, that with good forethought and making parts available laptops can be highly repairable.
The display unit is nothing an enduser should replace. Does every user know how to handle the delicate display and how to carefully install the LVDS cable? In most modern cars you cant replace the windscreen with cameras, heating wires in your backyard without the calibration software. You can try it, but you will fail.
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230VAC mains electrical fittings are openly sold in DIY shops in every country in the European Union without mass-cookings occurring as a result. This reeks of utterly unearned elitism.
Yep. I think pretty much every youngster gets some basic education (besides getting years of physics in high-school): disarm the group/fuse, double check with a power tester, make sure you are not causing any shorts. I don't know anyone who calls an electrician for replacing a light fitting, a power outlet, or light switches.
Besides that some European countries have required for decades that new houses/apartment have central residual-current circuit breakers for the whole house (unlike the US where as far as I understand they are only required in certain areas and are often in the socket and not centralized).
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I do that work almost every day. What if the untalented handyman crunches a live cable and the metallic frame is on fire? You can repair how and what you want, its your house and children.
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Screw in a light bulb and you work with 230V and we still allow people to screw in their own light bulbs
What are the 5 safety guidelines?
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"230VAC is dangerous, therefore it makes sense you cannot purchase a 12VDC laptop screen to install yourself"
Ever heard of the old displays with an inverter that produced around 700V? Can zap grandpa into the coffin... THats why they did not sell it to customers.
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Two of the reasons I eventually gave up on Desktop Linux, were virtualization getting good enough for just keep using Windows instead, back in the day with VMware Workstation and Virtual Box, nowadays with WSL (macOS is anyway UNIX enough for me to care otherwise).
And exactly the same experience with OEM vendors that were supposed to be Linux friendly, on my case the whole netbooks effort, where graphics, video decoding and wlan never worked as well on Windows, even though they were supposed to.
Dell XPS also had their issues for something that was supposed to be Canonical certified as running GNU/Linux properly.
It seems Android, ChromeOS and WebOS are the only ones where OEMs actually care to make it work properly, naturally the cloud and IoT vendors with their custom distros as well.
I've been running Linux on my laptop and on my workstation since the 90's. Still using it as my main driver. Fedora Kinoite is my distro of choice, and Lenovo AMD Thinkpad T14s the laptop. Everything works flawless, and it's still pretty fast even though it's two years old already.
And I do not miss at all the Microsoft bullsh*t on tracking and advertising. Or the general sluggishness of Windows.
I used to be quite cynical about these posts. I used Linux as my main desktop from 1994-2007 and switched to Mac then. I would periodically try on laptops Linux again, but there were always things broken in bad ways.
Early this year I bought a ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 AMD. In contrast to when I had a T14 Gen 1 AMD early 2020s, everything just works. All the hardware works, suspend/resume works, all the hardware comes up after a resume, etc.
Lately I have been using my ThinkPad much more than my MacBook Pro. NixOS is a superpower to me and having NixOS on a laptop is living the dream.
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Can attest - Thinkpads and Linux go great together. Used for 2 years, then was forced into Windows crap by corporate policy. No, WSL is not the same.
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I know, there are dozens on Linux forums, every time I was searching for workarounds.
Also it isn't as if I haven't subscribed to Linux Journal during its whole lifetime, or LWN, or even used to write M$ on email signatures and Usenet messages, for that matter.
Signed someone that knows Linux since kernel 1.0.9, yet has better things to do than making it work.
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Before the Tuxedo, I used an old Lenovo. I didn't check before if it works well with Linux, but it worked flawlessly. I am so used to devices working well and not having to think much about drivers. That's probably why I am disappointed by Tuxedo. They market themselves to Linux users but until recently they did not emphasize upstreaming and embracing standards.
What I love about Lenovo besides PSRef and all the maintenance/repair manuals (with part numbers, so that you know what to get if something needs to be replaced), etc. is that they often certify laptops for Linux.
They also seem to really care about supporting Linux. E.g. WWAN modems need proprietrary unlock procedures these days thanks to the FCC [1]. Most vendors would shrug and say 'sorry, we only support Windows', Lenovo has a repo with Linux support for all the modems that ThinkPads support (you can only use supported modems, because the FCC apparently only certifies laptop/modem combinations, not individual modems):
https://github.com/lenovo/lenovo-wwan-unlock
[1] https://modemmanager.org/docs/modemmanager/fcc-unlock/
I ran a Dell XPS (not even the Canonical certified version) for a few years at a past job, and everything worked pretty well under Ubuntu. But it's always a matter of which exact hardware combination has mainstream support, and if the version you get doesn't e.g. have a shitty WiFi chip with bad support.
Yes. This is why I rather check Linux support od chips in a machine that I am planning to buy. Not that much work but you will not get unpleasant surprise when Wi-Fi do not work.
Funny to read replies to your comment. One can be sure that on HN for every single critical comment about Linux viability one gets multiple responses claiming that Linux is perfect and without issues.
Inb4: I have used Linux exclusively from 2019 to 2024. It wasn't that bad but it wasn't flawless. At least once per month I met some issue that took few hours to solve. Currently on Win11, zero problems (yes, I am using pirated LTSC IoT version, how did you know?)
No system is without issues. We used ThunderBolt docks that worked perfectly with macOS, until one major release they became a hell to use because Apple broke something (which manifested as a display not coming back after resume, requiring several plugs/unplugs).
As everyone knows, Windows has its own fair share of issues. The first is that it is not a Unix :).
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In this case it turns out they got… one comment that was strongly pro-Linux, one that mentioned they didn’t have trouble but only as an aside before going on to discuss Tuxedo, and one that was softly positive but acknowledged the trouble of checking hardware beforehand.