Ubuntu Gnome on a Thinkpad x240

Recently i’ve bought a new notebook. After months of research i finally decided to buy a Lenovo Thinkpad x240. The specifications are quite aẃesome for a notebook for approximately 1000€. The 12,5 inch ultrabook comes with a non-glare 1080p screen, a core i7-4600 cpu, 8 GB of Ram, 256 GB SSD and built-in 3G modem. Because i love to work on a two monitor setup at home, and because of a wide range of additional devices i use in my office, i additionally bought a dock for the notebook.

I was unsure how this setup would work in an Ubuntu Gnome environment. After receiving notebook and dock i just made a BIOS Update (OS independent) and a firmware Update for my dock (Windows only). I was curious on how notebook and dock are working on windows 7. Windows needed up to 10 minutes to recognize mouse, keyboard, external card reader, steam controller and xbox 360 wireless controller. Dissapointing! The Multi-monitor setup was working. But problems occured while removing the notebook from the dock and plugging it back while powered on. Again all USB Ressources connected to the dock needed some minutes to install again. Then i tried out the internal 3G Modem. I chose „bob“ from the provider list and… nothing. Windows failed to „configure the APN“.

Then i installed Ubuntu Gnome 15.10 :)
Everything worked out of the box. All keyboard shortcuts are recognized, keyboard lighting and FN buttons work properly. All USB Devices were connected instantly. Both external monitors connected to the dock with HDMI and Display Port cables are working, touchpad and gestures, smartcard reader a working. And, i am not surpised, the internal 3G modem connects to bob after configuring the provider.

As for now, 10 days later, everything is fine. The i7-4600 is fast enough for raw photo editing and gimp, it’s fast enough for some simple games, even video editing is working fine as long i am not working with 4k format. 8 GB of RAM is power enough to run a virtual machine. I love it.

PS: i am selling my Lenovo Thinkpad x121e