| ThinkPad T430 | NitroPad T430 | |
|---|---|---|
| Recommended CPU | i7-3840QM | i7-3840QM |
| i5-3320M | i5-3320M | |
| Max. memory | 16GB (2 slots) | 16GB (2 slots) |
| USB controllers | 3 | 3 |
| Coreboot | possible | yes |
| Heads | possible | yes |
| ME_cleaner | possible | yes |
| Qubes OS pre-installed | no | yes |
| Developer tested | no[1] | yes |
| Certified | no | yes |
the ThinkPad T430 is the base for the certified NitroPad T430 which is regularly tested by the Qubes OS developers. ↩︎
I have a T430 that dual-boots R4.0 and R4.1 using current-testing.
Attached is the HCL for R4.1, though R4.0 works fine as well - just different kernel and Xen version.
Hardware info of note:
Setup:
current-testing and fully updatedcurrent-testing and fully updatedcheese worked AFTER assigning 500MB to sys-usbSoftware customization notes:
dom0_mem=1024M added to Xen options to restrict dom0 to 1G of memoryIn other words, Qubes R4.1 works on this laptop. I didn’t submit the R4.0 HCL as it’s redundant but R4.0 and R4.1 work perfectly (albeit with limited RAM).
Qubes-HCL-LENOVO-23445HU-20210614-124026.yml (913 Bytes)
Thank you @icequbes1 for your HCL report (and editing it yourself
already in a way that left very little for me to do)! It is now part of this pull request and will be available on the website soon!
Initial reactions after a bit of usage:
In R4.1, X was automatically using the modesetting driver and I observed some visual artifacts when dragging window or scrolling through Qubes Manager VMs.
I forced it to use the intel driver and those artifacts went away. Even with X using the modesetting driver, 1080p Youtube videos still played fine (though high CPU) and the artifacts were not observed in playback.
Improving battery life, frequency scaling, and power management will take some investigation. I’ll have to do more R4.0 vs R4.1 back-to-back investigation, but it appears under R4.1 battery drains a little faster when idle.
With sys-firewall, sys-net, sys-usb running, I can use 2-3 other qubes comfortably with 4G of RAM (but see the memory limiting stuff I mentioned above in the first post).
I have repeatedly seen now that the manufacturer reported max memory is not actually the maximum.
Has anyone succeeded in putting more than 16 GB into the T430?
Regrettably not - like the x230 the maximum really is 16GB
In my experience the only places where you get a “win” on being able to add more RAM to a laptop than the laptop specs state is when a) the CPU supports larger RAM than is currently available on the market or for manufacturer certification and b) the manufacturer writes support for the RAM size into the BIOS (but, again, cannot test it to certify it).
The x230 has only a pair of RAM slots, and the CPU only supports 8GB per.
This is one reason that the era’s W-series are so useful w/ Qubes: they have four slots to support the era’s quad-core CPUs and therefore can support 32GB. Note there are a few W-series that are dual core an that are also limited to 16GB.
B
4.1 HCL - Lenovo Thinkpad T430
Installed Qubes 4.1.0 on Lenovo Thinkpad T430
Tested and verified, works normal, no fix needed:
graphics
keyboard
track point mouse
touch pad
wired ethernet
wireless ethernet
usb port (connected mouse)
usb port (connected external SSD)
audio + audio control buttons
Not tested:
wimax
bluetooth
expresscard slot
memory card slot
camera
mic
fingerprint reader
[user@dom0 ~]$ qubes-hcl-report untrusted -s
Qubes release 4.1 (R4.1)
Brand: LENOVO
Model: 2347G2U
BIOS: G1ETC2WW (2.82 )
Xen: 4.14.3
Kernel: 5.10.96-1
RAM: 16081 Mb
CPU:
Intel(R) Core™ i5-3320M CPU @ 2.60GHz
Chipset:
Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller [8086:0154] (rev 09)
VGA:
Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Net:
Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (Lewisville) (rev 04)
Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak] (rev 34)
SCSI:
WDC WDS500G2B0A Rev: 00WD
HVM: Active
I/O MMU: Active
HAP/SLAT: Yes
TPM: Device present
Remapping: yes
Qubes HCL Files are copied to: ‘untrusted’
Qubes-HCL-LENOVO-2347G2U-20220220-124431.yml - HCL Info
Qubes-HCL-LENOVO-2347G2U-20220220-124431.cpio.gz - HCL Support Files
Qubes-HCL-LENOVO-2347G2U-20220220-124431.yml (910 Bytes)
Qubes-HCL-LENOVO-2347G2U-20220220-124431.cpiogz (9.4 KB)
Additional detailed installation notes to follow in follow-up posts to forum thread
Thank you for the report! Did you also test the suspend?
Yes suspend works normally, wired/wireless ethernet reconnects, vpn (adv conf) reconnects, no problems.
Thank you @oldschool for your HCL report, which is online now.
I also moved your thread here to have all reports about the T430 in one place.
I was extremely lucky and got a “new” (aka unused) T430 that spend the last 10 years in original packaging at an IT warehouse. After upgrading it to make it identical to the one I already have, I installed R4.1 on both of them.
HCL reports:
This machine is the best and it certainly works flawlessly without any workarounds or troubleshooting with R4.1. This being said I have a couple of notes I want to share:
If you use Coreboot/Heads make sure you upgraded to the current version Heads-v0.2.0-1150 or the install won’t work.
dom0 needs zenity installed for things like qvm-move-to-vm to work. Also in case you want to use Whiskermenu one now has to install xfce4-whiskermenu-plugin which was included by default previously.
Most of the Qubes OS UI in dom0 is now Qt5 based and doesn’t by default adhere to the selected theme, which is especially annoying when using a dark theme. Luckily this can easily be remedied by installing qt5-qtstyleplugins and exporting QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=gtk2 (e.g. in /etc/environment).
I get a very noticeable performance bump when using Btrfs as opposed to whatever is the default. I don’t have the technical understanding to explain this but I have done repeated A-B-A experiments on two identical computers and at least with my exact hardware (see above HCLs) the difference is very noticeable. This was the case with R4.0.4 and subjectively is even bigger with R4.1 (e.g. due to the current world situation I have a qube permanently streaming CNN in a window on my screen… this was not fluid and somewhat bumpy in the default install but runs smooth as butter now with Btrfs – I know that doesn’t make sense on the face of it, but it is what I see; also general qube startup times are several seconds shorter) … so I continue to strongly recommend this for this machine.
Hi,
I’m looking to get a T430 (from Nitrokey) and I can see quite a few here have experience with a T430. I’m not well versed in laptop hardware, but does the Atheros AR9462 work alright with the T430 and with QubesOS? I’ve got the option to choose between the Intel 802.11b/g/n 2200N and the Atheros AR9462 (for a small additional price), but I’m not aware of the differences between them.
The AR9462 is popular with folks doing monitoring and injecting on WiFi networks (aka spying and hacking). In other words: if you have to ask, you don’t need it.
The Intel option is perfectly fine for most users.
I have only a few weeks of experience with Nitropad T430 so far, but yes, Atheros AR9462 (ath9k) wifi works perfectly.
Edit: Someone on Nitrokey’s support forum has various experiences with ath11k driver. Qubes 4.1 installer doesn’t work because the driver is not compiled in the kernel, it seems.
I believe the max memory stated on the Lenovo website was 8GB, but the actual max is 16GB. so you are half right, the stated maximum isn’t the maximum
Sven which storage memory is recommended for t430
Hi @anon23935512 there is no special recommendation for just the T430. In general the use of an high quality SSD is recommended. Do a little research about their specs and then choose one that fits your budget.
Personally I am using the Samsung 860 PRO 1TB 2.5 Inch SATA III SSD and are very happy with it. In my own experiments I found that my T430 performs a lot better if I use BTRFS instead of the default option. Especially with R4.1. However, I cannot explain this or guarantee that you will see the same performance boost I see. I did confirm it with multiple installs on two different T430’s.
Hi @Sven do you put the 1tb 2.5 Inch SATA on the drive slot on right or inside the mob, Is this where you install the Qubes on the slot SSD or on the mob thanks.
I have no drive in the place where the CD drive was. Just one hard drive in the bay on the left. Qubes OS is the only system installed on my T430.