Linux on the Thinkpad X270

Old 2yr old X1 on the left, the heavy T530 (4 yr old) on the right
Laptop arrived Mar 9, 2017 in a 4GB version. Ran Ubuntu 16.10 right off the USB key to make sure it all worked. WiFi works, video ok, suspend ok. So things looking good for no reports on failure or success from the community. Configured with an internal drive: 500GB HDD. Replaced this one with an 8GB version on Apr 27.

12.5" FHD (1920x1080) 
dual battery (supposedly 21hr)

First impressions:
   - USB3, but doesn't have the blue signature (odd)
   - HDMI, no DP (sad) 
   - real ethernet,no dongle (nice)
   - has an SD card reader (nice)
   - nice to have the old-style lenovo charging cables that work on my X1 (nice)
   - battery indeed last quite long (if you don't do anything)
   - small, the width of the laptop is 12inch (undecided)

Ubuntu16.10

Replacing the HDD was harder than I thought. Didn't have the soft tool to separate the bottom plate, and didn't want to force it. But i need it on the trip, so started windows anyways, created a startup disk on an 8GB USB, and installed U16.10. To my pleasant surprise it gently installed GRUB parallel to the windows boot loader. I gave 200 GB to windows, and left 300 GB for Linux. The default boot is luckily ubunty. A separate entry for the WBL, and it boots to Win10. Not too bad. Only sad part, my 4GB memory made it create only a 4GB swap by default. So this machine is not for heavy lifting yet.

First impressions:

   - touchpad now had two finger scrol mode as "natural", but that's 
     unnatural to me. good it's an option. thank you apple.

   - darn, can't figure out focus follows mouse. that's in another app, not the default system settings (grrrr)

   - 4GB, will eventually upgrade.

   - 500GB.... will do something here too eventually.

   - loading apps is not super fast....  (hdparm gave the disk about 113 MB/sec)

   - the fist X270 had a Li-Polymar internal battery (supposedly better?), but the 2nd one Li-Ion for both. Disappointing.

Ubuntu17.04

I did upgrade the 16.10 to 17.04. No issues. but when the replacement 8GB version of the X270 arrived, decided to install 17.04 before even installing windows. 17.04 doesn't use a swap partition, but swap file. Perhaps it can grow dynamically, as it only came with a 2 GB swap when booted up. Also notable is that when Windows did it's thing, it overwrote the MBR (or something) and there was no more boot to grub/linux. Solution was to stick in the USB, but not boot from the stick, but from the true Ubuntu partition. Then run "grub-install", and things were ok again. Thank you Microsoft. Not. I had heard this story before though, so was prepared.

Linux on the Thinkpad X270

Ubuntu16.10

Ubuntu17.04

Issues

Links