Hello linix@lemmy, I got fixed on the idea of replacing my iPad with a 2in1 like the thibkpad X13 for uni since I use the keyboard with my iPad a lot. The only time I need to take handwritten notes is in chemistry, mathematics and to annotate PDFs. Does anyone here have experience with convertibles running Linux? What would be the best one for palm rejection and writing?
I was unable to find reviews on reasonably modern hardware. Until now I have my eyes set on an Thinkpad X13 since it is Ubuntu certified at least. Thanks :)
Nice post !
I bought a Microsoft Surface Book 2 when I wasn’t converted yet. BUT: now it kind of rules. There is a custom Linux Kernel for Surface devices, everything except the camera works now. That means especially: attach and detach the screen from the Keyboard and use the pen with all it’s features.
I wouldn’t buy a surface device now, because I don’t want to support Microsoft. But if you find a Book 2 for cheap, this would be a possible solution to your search.
I bought a used Thinkpad Yoga 370, with a 7th gen i5, 8gb ram (single slot sodimm, which is a real pity) which I later upgraded to 16gb. Also the pen slots right into the frame of the laptop for storage and recharging, so you don’t need to carry it around separately, though it may be a bit small for some people. I personally find myself comfortable with it.
I went right to arch (btw), as I was on both on my old laptop and my desktop, the archwiki has a page dedicated to this laptop, listing which features work and which don’t. If you mess around with the fingerprint sensor and python-validity package you can get it to work, but I don’t use it anyway. The rest works out of the box, though I have never tried the modem (my version lacks antennas and the module) and the express card reader.
I use xournal++ to take notes in uni. I tend to make a huge journal for each course (easily 150+ pages at the end of the semester), so make sure to disable autosaves as sometimes they hang up the whole program while trying to save.
At first I was using gnome on wayland, which has pretty good palm rejection, autorotation and sensor/webcam remapping and works great out of the box in general. Later moved to i3 on xorg as somehow a tiling window manager made more sense to me on a touchscreen device (android is kind of a tiling window manager if you think about it). Currently on i3, using touchegg to use custom gestures for the WM and specific programs. I am currently wondering whether to move to hyprland as I noticed slightly worse palm rejection on i3/xorg when compared to gnome/wayland (still very usable though), but I still want a tiling window manager and customizable touch gestures, which Hyprland should have a plugin for.
I general I find this laptop great, the x1 yoga should be good too, but I have never tried it on linux.
I have a Lenovo Yoga 6 13" that I’ve had a pretty good experience with. Screen rotation didn’t work properly on Ubuntu 20.04 when I tried it back then, but I switched to Fedora 36 KDE, which worked great for over a year. I’m now on Debian 12 + KDE with an equally good experience. Fingerprint reader is not supported, but I didn’t want to use it anyway.
Back in the day I used a surface pro 3 dual booting windows and linux. Linux didn’t have the drivers to support the pen back then so I used windows and one note for note taking.
