Lenovo G710/Z710 for Linux

Has anyone got a Lenovo G710 or Z710 running Linux ?
Does everything work ? Backlit keyboard on Z710 ?
Is the HD+ 1600x900 resolution of the G710 workable ?

 

Backlit keyboard is a hardware feature and will work under linux, and 1600x900 is workable. Aside from that, i have no idea if Linux is compatible on these models. On my Y410, i had to do a few workarounds to get Linux to fully work.

The Z710 is much better than the G710, especially if you get the Full HD display.

 

Thanks for the feedback but I'm puzzled.
You say the backlit keyboard is a hardware feature, so bios controlled (I assume that's what you mean).
But on the other hand, you have no idea if linux works on these models. So how can you be sure the backlit keyboard will work ?

 

Because the keyboard is controlled by the BIOS and not the OS. My red backlit keyboard works under any OS, I don't see how this should differ on the Z series.

 

Ok, well at least that's reassuring. I've read countless threads on other brands of laptops where the backlighting is controlled by Windows. Either it doesn't work at all or it's at full brightness all the time, which is murder for your battery life. Apparently, laptops with bios controlled backlighting are very rare.
I assume booting into legacy bios isn't a problem either ?

The Z710 I've got my eye on is a Core i5 4200M, Geforce 740M, 8Gb of RAM, 1Tb HDD.
Aassuming I'd like to add an SSD later, I could do it by replacing the optical drive with a SSD/caddy , at which point I'd be able to change the boot order in the bios (so I can put the system on the SSD and my /home folder on the HDD).

 

Booting into the bios is easy, best of all, lenovo laptops don't require you to spam F2/F12 as you can use the Onekey power button (the smaller power button) to boot to a menu containing the BIOS options, the boot menu and the OS recovery.

 

I purchased a Z710 recently, and I have Linux running on it as of today. I ran into several issues getting it working, but it was mostly user-error, as this is my first "modern" laptop (UEFI, secure-boot, etc.)
As Jobine said, the backlight feature is hardware-based, so it will work out of the box, regardless of the OS (if any at all!).
Booting into the bios is also easy (as Jobine said, again), as it does have a very handy button right next to the power button that gives you the option to boot into bios. Once in the bios, it is very easy to turn off secure-boot and switch from UEFI to legacy-boot.

I currently have Xubuntu 13.10 installed. My system has/is i7-4700MQ, 16GB RAM, GT 745M, 1TB HDD, Intel 7260 Wireless.

It was a little difficult to actually boot a live disc (usb/dvd), but I figured out you need to edit the boot parameter and add "nomodeset". I believe this has something to do with the graphics (namely since it's Optimus), but don't quote me on that.
See this link for more info on this (goto the section labeled "Black/purple screen after you boot Ubuntu for the first time").

After installing the OS, I then worked on getting the graphics working properly (so I wouldn't have to use "nomodeset" anymore). First I installed bumblebee as per the instructions here (make sure you follow the particular line for the distro version (e.g. 12.04-13.04 vs 13.10)). While it was installing, I noticed it had installed version 304 of the nvidia drivers, but 304 doesn't support the GT 745 graphics card, so I upgraded it (just follow the "Updating Drivers" section verbatim on the same page). to version 319 right after that (and I mean immediately after; I did not reboot between installs, as the driver would not have worked).
I was able to successfully run the benchmarks from Unigine (with the exception of Tropics, since it seems I'm currently missing a library, but I'll work on that another time) once all that was done.

Throughout the process of figuring things out though, I noticed my wifi was intermittently dropping. I had to reboot once because it failed altogether.
I found a fix that seems to be working perfectly now though (it seems to be somewhat better connected, plus quite a bit more stable; I haven't had to restore the connection the entire time I've been writing this post!).
Here's the link to the fix I found: No wireless for Intel Corporation 7260 version 63 - Ask Ubuntu

Other than those rather easy-to-fix issues, the laptop is working very well, and I'd have to say I'm pretty pleased. The only complaint I might give is the fact that the keyboard dips a little while typing. In other words, it's not the "firmest" design, it seems to be a little hollow, but I don't notice while I'm typing. You can only really tell by intentionally pressing in-between the keys. For the price I paid, it's hardly an issue to me at all though.

As far as battery life, my indicator claims I have at least 3 hours of battery time (4-cell battery), but I have yet to actually test how accurate it is.
Also, I have to say, I like the speakers quite a bit as well, they are fairly loud and clear, at least compared to my previous laptop (HP 4710s).

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask 'em!

 

That's called keyboard flex. I noticed this about a week ago when i had the chance to type on a Z series, the Z series keyboard (compared to my Y series) had flex and also felt mushier, also they keys were not as curved and the back lighting was weaker.

 

Alright, I didn't know it had a more official name, thanks!
Compared to some of the pictures on Lenovo's website, the Z series (or at least, the Z710) definitely does not have the curved keys like the Y series.(all the keys are flat)
The backlighting is good enough for me, but then, this is my first laptop with backlighting anyway. Compared to the pictures of the Y series though, it does look like the Z series is weaker.

 

Thx for the info !

 

I'm running ubuntu 12.04 on Lenovo IdeaPad Z710 and backlit is working fine but for WiFi you have to install iwlwifi driver and also after reinstall proprietary drivers are not found by ubuntu (on first installation where 3 of them) and as a result internal mic stop working. Looks that intel fight Linux (no drivers for Linux) - but hopfully will fail.

 

Hmm, have you tried changing your mic input in alsamixer?

 

Hi, I have installed Uuntu 12.04 LTS on my IdeaPad Z710 and everything's working okay, except for two strange problems, maybe you have some ideas what I should try:

1) I have an external DVD-Drive, an USB mouse and an USB hub with three external drives attached. After booting and login usually only one or two of those three USB devices is ready to use. For instance: I can use the mouse and the DVD drive, but the system doesn't really recognize the three external drives connected through the hub. I tried dis- and reconnecting the hub, and I can see in /var/log/syslog, it does recognize the three drives, but not the filesystems. This is also the case if i attach a USB stick.

It typically looks like this for each drive:

Feb 19 21:05:43 Lenovo kernel: [ 1194.951274] usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 55 using xhci_hcd
Feb 19 21:05:43 Lenovo kernel: [ 1194.967990] usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0781, idProduct=5530
Feb 19 21:05:43 Lenovo kernel: [ 1194.967999] usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Feb 19 21:05:43 Lenovo kernel: [ 1194.968005] usb 3-1: Product: Cruzer
Feb 19 21:05:43 Lenovo kernel: [ 1194.968009] usb 3-1: Manufacturer: SanDisk
Feb 19 21:05:43 Lenovo kernel: [ 1194.968013] usb 3-1: SerialNumber: 2*************************C
Feb 19 21:05:43 Lenovo kernel: [ 1194.968811] usb-storage 3-1:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
Feb 19 21:05:43 Lenovo kernel: [ 1194.968958] scsi11 : usb-storage 3-1:1.0
Feb 19 21:05:44 Lenovo mtp-probe: checking bus 3, device 55: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:14.0/usb3/3-1"
Feb 19 21:05:44 Lenovo mtp-probe: bus: 3, device: 55 was not an MTP device
Feb 19 21:05:44 Lenovo kernel: [ 1195.967126] scsi 11:0:0:0: Direct-Access SanDisk Cruzer 1.20 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
Feb 19 21:05:44 Lenovo kernel: [ 1195.967761] sd 11:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
Feb 19 21:05:44 Lenovo kernel: [ 1195.968812] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdc] 125031680 512-byte logical blocks: (64.0 GB/59.6 GiB)
Feb 19 21:05:44 Lenovo kernel: [ 1195.971767] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
Feb 19 21:05:44 Lenovo kernel: [ 1195.971777] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
Feb 19 21:05:44 Lenovo kernel: [ 1195.972152] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdc] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
Feb 19 21:05:44 Lenovo kernel: [ 1195.983379] sdc: sdc1
Feb 19 21:05:44 Lenovo kernel: [ 1195.985118] sd 11:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk


BUT: when i then dis- and then reconnect ANOTHER USB device (the DVD drive for instance, which isn't even mounted), the system almost immediately recognizes the filesytem(s) and mounts the drive(s).
Syslog then (and only then) goes on like this:

Feb 19 21:06:58 Lenovo udevd[2611]: timeout '/sbin/blkid -o udev -p /dev/sdc'
Feb 19 21:06:58 Lenovo udevd[2611]: timeout 'udisks-part-id /dev/sdc'
Feb 19 21:06:58 Lenovo ntfs-3g[3033]: Version 2012.1.15AR.1 external FUSE 28
Feb 19 21:06:58 Lenovo ntfs-3g[3033]: Mounted /dev/sdc1 (Read-Write, label "Cruzer64", NTFS 3.1)
Feb 19 21:06:58 Lenovo ntfs-3g[3033]: Cmdline options: rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=1000,gid=1000,dmask=0077,fmask=0177
Feb 19 21:06:58 Lenovo ntfs-3g[3033]: Mount options: rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,allow_other,nonempty,relatime,default_permissions,fsname=/dev/sdc1,blkdev,blksize=4096
Feb 19 21:06:58 Lenovo ntfs-3g[3033]: Global ownership and permissions enforced, configuration type 7


2) When I shut down, the laptop gets stuck at "*Will halt now" and has to be turned off manually.

Any ideas on this? Would be very much appreciated, thank you in advance.

 

1. Try:

sudo apt-get install dmks

or

update your kernel

2. No ideas, might wanna create a custom script to shut off. Though this could be a software issue.

 

Thanks for your reply.

Did you mean dkms? dkms IS installed. I'll probably try a newer kernel tomorrow then.

The second problem actually seems to be related to the first. When I disconnect an USB device while the system shows that "will halt now" message, it gets turned off immediately.