Reviewing a Laptop: ThinkPad x13-G2

October 4, 2024

As simple as it gets: it has a 8C/16T CPU, 16GB Ram and 500GB SSD.

Lenovo Thinkpad x13

It’s 13’, over 1kg of weight and 30.44x21,58x1,55cm.

ℹ️

With ~1.005L in volume its even smaller than the AsrockX300

It comes with W11 already installed, which I kept together with an Ubuntu installation (you need to desable Windows bitlocker first to be able to tweak the SDD space distribution).

For a quick Windows setup, I used Chocolatey

Benchmarks ThinkPad x13-G2

Results - SysBench 📌

Device	Sysbench (4 threads)	Sysbench (8 threads)	Release Date
Raspberry Pi 4 2GB (Broadcom BCM2711, 4C/4T)	~1.7k events	-	June 2019
Raspberry Pi 4 4GB (Broadcom BCM2711, 4C/4T)	~28k events	-	June 2019
Orange Pi 5 (Rockchip RK3588S, 8C/8T)	~38k events	~50k events	November 2022
Intel i3 5005U (2C/4T)	~7.3k events	no 8C, but it served me to try Linux for the first time!	Jan 2015
Intel i5-1135G7 (4C/8T)	~35.7k events	~37.7k events	Nov 2020
AMD 5850U (AMD Ryzen 7 8C/16T)	~72k events	~121k events	January 2021
AMD 5600G (AMD Ryzen 5, 6C/12T)	~79k events	~123k events (with 12 threads goes up to ~130k and 6.1k 24.1k 7zip)	April 2021

I am really impressed with the CPU performance, almost the most powerful CPU I ever tried

#lscpu
sysbench --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=20000 --num-threads=4 run
#sysbench --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=20000 --num-threads=8 run

ℹ️

It feels much faster than the i7-1185G7+32Gb Ram that im using at work (specially with Linux)

My Setup for a Laptop

Whether you want to use Conky or not…

Give it a cool wallpaper, like Garuda has:

wget "https://gitlab.com/garuda-linux/themes-and-settings/artwork/garuda-wallpapers/-/raw/master/src/garuda-wallpapers/Dr460nized%20Honeycomb.png?ref_type=heads&inline=false" -O Dr460nized_Honeycomb.png #download garuda wallpaper

You will probably want Gitlab ready and get ready for SelfHosting:

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/JAlcocerT/Linux/main/Z_Linux_Installations_101/Selfhosting_101.sh
#nano Selfhosting_101.sh #MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU WILL BE RUNNING

chmod +x Selfhosting_101.sh
sudo ./Selfhosting_101.sh

ℹ️

SelfH Script

You might want to consider OS like:

NixOS - https://search.nixos.org/packages?channel=24.05&show=librewolf&size=50&sort=relevance&type=packages&query=librewolf
ZorinOS
KDE with some customization

Tailscale and DNS’s 📌

I like to use QUAD9 DNS’s:

sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf

Add the following if you want to use quad9 DNS:

#nameserver 192.168.0.117 #to use the OPi5 locally
nameserver 9.9.9.9
nameserver 149.112.112.112

nslookup google.com #see that now you are using quad9 DNS

https://login.tailscale.com/admin/machines

Enable Magic DNS at the DNS Tab
Add Quad9 Public DNS as nameserver
YOu will have an unique name like: abcdef.ts.net

Now, you can do:

ping orangepi5.abcdef.ts.net #nameofthedevicefortailscale.yourtailnetname
ssh youruser@orangepi5.abcdef.ts.net #connect ssh with the same name!

Even in your browser, you could go to: http://orangepi5.abcdef.ts.net:9000 and use portainer or any other service!

Then, if you want to do cool things with VSCode and a server…

ℹ️

Setup a Server as Remote dev environment

Sync and BackUps

I love my Syncthing setup, but…

…Syncthing Android Apps is about to be gone

df -h | awk '$2 ~ /G/ && $2+0 > 3' #if you set logs, careful with the disk space (see drives >3GB)
df -h | awk 'NR==1 || $2 ~ /[GT]/'

lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,TYPE,FSTYPE,MOUNTPOINT | awk 'NR==1 || $2 ~ /[GT]/'

With Syncthing, I sync my pixel at /media/jalcocert/BackUp/Sync_Pixel

Connect to NextCloud as WebDav 📌

You can install NextCloud Clients or…
You can browse the available files without taking space on your PC by adding the NC Instance as a WebDav Folder

Im assuming you have already a NextCloud Server Setup

You will need to go to folders, other locations and use: dav://nextcloudurl:8080/remote.php/dav/files/YOUR_USERNAME_HERE/

NextCloud WebDav

Once you provide the user and pass, you will be able to see all the NC Files.

SFTPgo as WebDav 📌

SFTPgo with docker compose JMLabarta video

Using the ThinkPad w a Server

I am using my OrangePi5 as server now.

graph TD
    A[ThinkPad] --> B[Orange Pi 5]

Opi5 latest Linux tricks 📌

Could not find one of my 2tb drives…

It seems it got corrupted due to improper reboots.

We need to unmount before reboots as well

FAQ

Enter the boot menu of the Lenovo Thinkpad x13 g2 by pressing F12

Changing Power Profiles in your Laptop 📌

#sudo apt-get -y install power-profiles-daemon
powerprofilesctl list
#powerprofilesctl set performance

Testing Internet Connectivity of a new Laptop 📌

ip addr show
hostname -I

#sudo apt-get install net-tools
#ifconfig

ping -c 4 192.168.0.1 #gateway
ping -c 4 192.168.0.117 #ping the orange pi which is connected to same device
ping 9.9.9.9 #ping quad9 dns server

sudo apt-get install dnsutils -y #dns resolution
nslookup github.com 
dig google.com

sudo apt-get install speedtest-cli
speedtest-cli #speedtest-cli --simple

Regular browser speed test: https://www.speedtest.pl/

curl -sS https://ipinfo.io/json #the command to use
curl -sS http://ip-api.com/json/ #provides info about country, ISP, ...
curl -6 ifconfig.me #ipv6 info 

Connecting your laptop to your server with https:

Local Image

Raw image under static directory.

HTTPS Everywhere

Setup NGINX with DuckDNS to have https certificates.

How to Check dead Pixels

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