Hi all,
since the day Windows 10 came to the market I am working on Linux. Because I'm administrating a bunch of Debian machines with Old-Stable (9 - Jessie) and Stable (10 - Buster) my first choice is using Debian Buster on my notebook, too. So I was looking around for a new notebook since summer, which has newer hardware and will be able to run Buster.
I watched some other page which offers full Linux supported notebooks, but they had no idea wether Buster will work on the actual model as well as the date the hardware will be available again. Ok, "no idea" I also had, so I ended up at the German page of PCSpecialist and found pretty the same hardware for a much cheaper price.
What I ordered was this:
Lafité IV 14''
CPU: Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core -Prozessor i5-10210U (1,6 GHz, 4,2 GHz Turbo)
RAM: 4 GB-Corsair 2133 MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 4 GB), replaced by 1x 16GB
GPU: INTEL® HD GRAPHICS (CPU-abhängig) – 1,7 GB Max DDR4 Video-RAM DirectX® 12
M2 (System): 128 GB-ADATA SX6000 LITE M.2 2280 (1800 MB/R, 1200 MB/W)
SSD (Data): empty at delivery, build in 2TB SSD
BT and WLAN: GIGABIT-LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (2,4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
On building in the SSD and upgrading the RAM I saw what I like a lot: Clevo designs notebooks for upgrading, not for the garbage can. As others are soldering RAM, SSD, WiFi and Bluetooth to the mainboard, everything can be changed here. Great! For the SSD I had to use a small stripe of double sided tape to fix it, because it has a smaller building height.
In the English forum I found this thread by JERFAC (and I like it a lot, it was a great help!):
www.pcspecialist.co.uk
My first test was installing Buster with firmware, just to see what will happen. The system booted up to the point where the firmware for the GPU should be loaded, but then nothing happend, because a 4.19.x kernel just cannot run actual firmware.
Second test was installing Bullseye with firmware. Here everything worked out of the box, as far as I could see.
What to learn from that? Actual kernel and working firmware are on their way at Debian, but in cause of Debian's policy of maximum stability, they didn't find their way to Buster. So I looked around in the "Backports Repository". There I found a newer kernel 5.3.x and some firmware which should do their job.
Final installation I did using Buster with firmware. On booting after the installation was finished I chose the "Advanced Options" and ended up in a shell as root. There I added the Backport Repositories in /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main contrib non-free
After starting the network and "apt update" I was able to install a kernel 5.3.x from the backports. I had to purge some old firmware (e.g. "firmware-iwlwifi") and could install it again from the backports. This is what I used from the backports: Kernel, linux-firmware-nonfree, linux-firmware, firmware-misc-nonfree, firmware-iwlwifi, firmware-realtek
The result was a proper running Debian Buster on a Lafité IV 14''. WiFi works stable with 2,4GHz and 5GHz. Bluetooth I didn't test a lot, but my mouse is doing it's job. HDMI works as expected, as well as USB, Sound, Webcam and Ethernet. For Thunderbold I don't have any device to test. FN-Keys and suspend & hibernate I will find out during the next days.
"intel-microcode" as mentioned by PHIWYE is a necessary idea to install. Because this is an security update it will be available in all repos with the same built.
Greetz
Martin
since the day Windows 10 came to the market I am working on Linux. Because I'm administrating a bunch of Debian machines with Old-Stable (9 - Jessie) and Stable (10 - Buster) my first choice is using Debian Buster on my notebook, too. So I was looking around for a new notebook since summer, which has newer hardware and will be able to run Buster.
I watched some other page which offers full Linux supported notebooks, but they had no idea wether Buster will work on the actual model as well as the date the hardware will be available again. Ok, "no idea" I also had, so I ended up at the German page of PCSpecialist and found pretty the same hardware for a much cheaper price.
What I ordered was this:
Lafité IV 14''
CPU: Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core -Prozessor i5-10210U (1,6 GHz, 4,2 GHz Turbo)
RAM: 4 GB-Corsair 2133 MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 4 GB), replaced by 1x 16GB
GPU: INTEL® HD GRAPHICS (CPU-abhängig) – 1,7 GB Max DDR4 Video-RAM DirectX® 12
M2 (System): 128 GB-ADATA SX6000 LITE M.2 2280 (1800 MB/R, 1200 MB/W)
SSD (Data): empty at delivery, build in 2TB SSD
BT and WLAN: GIGABIT-LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (2,4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
On building in the SSD and upgrading the RAM I saw what I like a lot: Clevo designs notebooks for upgrading, not for the garbage can. As others are soldering RAM, SSD, WiFi and Bluetooth to the mainboard, everything can be changed here. Great! For the SSD I had to use a small stripe of double sided tape to fix it, because it has a smaller building height.
In the English forum I found this thread by JERFAC (and I like it a lot, it was a great help!):
Lafite IV 15.6" (Clevo N151CU) Debian testing (bullseye)
Hi, I've recently purchased a Lafite IV 15.6" (Clevo N151CU) and have installed Debian testing (bullseye). Here are some specs: Chassis & Display Lafité Series: Aluminium Chassis: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED (1920 x 1080) Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core Processor i5-10210U (1.6GHz...
My first test was installing Buster with firmware, just to see what will happen. The system booted up to the point where the firmware for the GPU should be loaded, but then nothing happend, because a 4.19.x kernel just cannot run actual firmware.
Second test was installing Bullseye with firmware. Here everything worked out of the box, as far as I could see.
What to learn from that? Actual kernel and working firmware are on their way at Debian, but in cause of Debian's policy of maximum stability, they didn't find their way to Buster. So I looked around in the "Backports Repository". There I found a newer kernel 5.3.x and some firmware which should do their job.
Final installation I did using Buster with firmware. On booting after the installation was finished I chose the "Advanced Options" and ended up in a shell as root. There I added the Backport Repositories in /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-backports main contrib non-free
After starting the network and "apt update" I was able to install a kernel 5.3.x from the backports. I had to purge some old firmware (e.g. "firmware-iwlwifi") and could install it again from the backports. This is what I used from the backports: Kernel, linux-firmware-nonfree, linux-firmware, firmware-misc-nonfree, firmware-iwlwifi, firmware-realtek
The result was a proper running Debian Buster on a Lafité IV 14''. WiFi works stable with 2,4GHz and 5GHz. Bluetooth I didn't test a lot, but my mouse is doing it's job. HDMI works as expected, as well as USB, Sound, Webcam and Ethernet. For Thunderbold I don't have any device to test. FN-Keys and suspend & hibernate I will find out during the next days.
"intel-microcode" as mentioned by PHIWYE is a necessary idea to install. Because this is an security update it will be available in all repos with the same built.
Greetz
Martin
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