[ltp] Help needed with choosing the right ThinkPad

[Stefan Monnier]

>> any thinkpad will run any form of linux perfectly.
> Alas, I think that is an overstatement.
> Last time I checked (quite some time ago, admittedly, so I'm happy to be
> corrected), most Thinkpads required non-free drivers, e.g. for their
> wireless network cards.

I think that is also true for AMD GPUs (not sure what else might be
affected, but bluetooth modules seem likely candidates as well).

> But performing such a swap is not straightforward, because most (all?)
> models of Thinkpad ship from Lenovo with a BIOS/(U)EFI that whitelists
> only the specific expansion cards that Lenovo expects to install at the
> factory.

Indeed.  For some models, you might be able to find hacked firmwares
where the whitelist is disabled (that's what I use on my T61).
Use at your own risk, tho, of course.

I saw a comment a while back about Lenovo dropping this ridiculous
whitelist practice.... for example:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/31rnsv/t450_and_x250_no_longer_have_whitelists/

but I haven't been able to find any confirmation that this problem
doesn't affect more recent models.  Anyone?


        Stefan


PS: BTW, it seems like the T450s *does* support 16GB SODIMMs and while
they're not super-common, I found such dimm on newegg (which even
explicitly mentions T450s) for about US$140, so the memory size limit is
really 20GB.