The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 10 as a Linux Laptop
theregister.com
theregister.com
I don't even run Arch, but in my experience, the Arch wikis for hardware support are amazing: complete, accurate, and to the point. For laptops, they start with a small table indicating what works and what does not. Then concise but precise explanations of the pain points. And whenever a fix exists, it is explained in a way that will make it work not only on Arch, but often also on other distros.
Take this very laptop for example, the X1 Carbon Gen10. The Arch wiki entry [1] has all the information found in the OP, but it cuts right to the point without any fluff. And then it adds technical explanations and workarounds.
[1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X1_Carbon_(...
>those updates might not be available under Linux
Just because FWUPD exists, doesn't mean that FWUPD has updates for all laptops or HW devices in your laptop. All HW manufacturers ship Windows drivers and FW updates for Windows, but not all push their updates to fwupd as well. That's why you should use Windows to update everything first especially if you don't know if your devices are supported by fwupd.
Maybe you're buying used and you can get a great deal that just has that one drawback.
Too bad many that can don't. There's no way for the little players to achieve economies of scale of the big players if folks keep buying Windows hardware from the big players.
Also, with that mentality, we would never extend Linux support to new hardware.
It doesn't sound as good as a fully supported option. It sounds a lot like commodity Windows hardware.
> Also, with that mentality, we would never extend Linux support to new hardware.
No, hobbyists will still do it (see e.g. Asahi)
If folks keep giving their money to Windows hardware companies instead of Linux ones, they should not be surprised if the range if Linux-supporting hardware remains smaller. Like if you could just slap OSX on some random Windows PC M1 and such would never have come about.
We actually have options as Linux users these days. It's a shame folks insist on wasting the opportunity.
And unless you're a GNU/Nerd, most people have better uses for their time than scouring through the web to find out if fwupd works for the HW when they go shopping for a new laptop. Most normal people just buy a laptop that fits them best and that's it.
After all, why would they need to do any extra research for this? Isn't the whole internet and HN preaching that the year of the Linux is here and that it "just works(TM)"? Maybe not without caveats.
If you keep buying Windows hardware and slapping Linux on it, you'll have to be the systems integration team all by yourself. Without documentation of the hardware, or support.
It's a mug's game. Don't play it. Buy Linux hardware, with support.
And many people in many markets don't have easy access to buying linux specific laptops. A HP, Dell or Lenovo is much easier to find around the world, and most importantly, easier to get service for it when it breaks versus boutique Linux laptop makers like Slimbook, System76, Framework, etc.
Or you buy Linux hardware with support.
Perhaps you're thinking of responses to the perennial genre of, "I slapped Linux on my Windows box, and it was terrible, so Linux sucks!" posts?
Like you, I personally nuke Windows immediately and run fwupd from Linux... but then... I'm lucky I get to choose my own laptops. And I only buy those whose manufacturers support fwupd. It's a growing number, but I don't think it's a majority...? I'm not sure, I would be happy if anyone had hard data here.
I did in fact say that in the article. (I wrote the story at the top of this post.)
[0] https://fwupd.org/ [1] http://rufus.ie/
If you did your research and made sure to buy linux supported hardware, then good for you mate, you're free to do whatever you want now, but for us with less linux friendly hardware or unknown to the user, my point still stands, you should first update everything under windows (including usb-c/thunderbolt docking station FW) to ensure a good linux experience later.
System76 supports LVFS and Framework has started using it for its latest beta firmware updates. (for a full list of vendors: https://fwupd.org/lvfs/vendors/ )
I actually plan on buying a X1 Carbon Gen10 in the following weeks, and use Arch as my daily driver, and yet I didn't think of checking the (honestly amazing) ArchWiki.
Also I think you'll love the machine - it's certainly my favorite Linux laptop.
It will reflect the reality of the situation for that specific set of hardware. The vendor is going to give you a sales pitch.
And I say this as someone who has gone out of my way to buy hardware from vendors that officially support linux (Dell & Lenovo).
In many cases - the most official support you'll get is "This is a known issue, we are working on it."
Ex: https://www.dell.com/en-us/lp/linux-systems
I used an XPS 13 developer edition for quite a while. Great little machine, but a couple of known issues around wifi/bluetooth and the fingerprint reader. Fixable, and Dell actually did provide drivers in a deb for Ubuntu, but it took them a little while.
But generally speaking, yes you can call - they will provide resources and point you at fixes they've implemented, but it's still a bit of a grab bag. I would definitely not buy a linux machine from them without checking the Arch wiki first.
Ex: The current developer machine shipping from Dells link is here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dell_XPS_13_Plus_(9320)
Mostly fine across the board - some known issues with very recent kernel versions, and some problems with the webcam. Dell fixed the webcam issues in their default Ubuntu release, but it requires manual fixing on other distros.
My general rules of thumb for selecting laptops for linux:
- Avoid Realtek wherever possible, usually in favor of Intel. Even though Realtek hardware usually technically works on Linux, it's often in a reduced or buggy capacity.
- Avoid Nvidia. This might change soon now that Nvidia is finally being a bit more open with driver development, but for now Nvidia cards are still likely cause of unnecessary pain.
- If possible, avoid discrete GPUs. AMD cards are more likely to be well-behaved than Nvidia cards but often the most trouble-free experience is with nothing but an iGPU. This is really only practical for users who use laptops for their portability and have a desktop for where raw power is necessary.
I disagree on this and the supposed Clevo point. Got a source for "just a Clevo" rebadge?
Also, support and firmware.
But yes, if you want a non-Clevo ODM there aren't as many options.
Note, though, that buying from Windows vendors will make the situation worse, not better.
It's the best way to describe it: they change maybe the wifi card, certainly the logo, tweak a few bios defaults, and for sure you a premium for that, but that's all they can do, and nothing you couldn't do yourself (except the logo, unless you like stickers lol)
> Note, though, that buying from Windows vendors will make the situation worse, not better.
In term of having more rebadging? Yes, there will be more parasites taking advantage of people who want to buy the right to have someone to blame for their laptop not working correctly on Linux.
But it terms on Linux support, it will not change anything: Lenovo still offers the best support, with other companies except Framework limited by their dependance on Clevo
It might even make things worse, by leading those who've been taken advantage of by unscrupulous companies that Linux just doesn't work well on laptops.
More important, for those wanting the best results, it will be counter productive: they will certainly have someone to blame (they paid for that "right" after all) but they could have instead taken the problem in their own hands and made their hardware work, with the help of resources like archwiki.
It's not the ideal solution, but I think Framework will need another 5 to 10 years to be really competitive to Lenovo. In the meantime, I would be happy to support them or help them, but now that I've decided 2023 is my year of Linux on the desktop, it'll have to be on a Lenovo.
Nope. That's 100% false.
https://twitter.com/jeremy_soller/status/1322954630448427011
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17039414
I don't get why Lenovos are supposedly so great. The one I had at work was _terrible_, hands down the worst Linux experience I've ever had. And I put Linux on a bunch of Windows boxen back when we had no choices in the matter.
You only had one? How can you pretend to know a brand with 1 model?
FYI, of the modern thinkpads, only those from the X1 series are good.
On the others series, too many corners have been cut. At work, you're unlikely to have gotten a X1, so I'm not surprised about your experience.
If you are curious and want to try, get a X1, even an old one from ebay. It can be great after some minor configuration, and I'd be happy to help: my 2 lenovos (a hold on windows and linux, a nano just on linux) are both perfectly stable, consume less than 5% of battery per 10h of sleep, and resumes perfectly. I don't know any better computer to run Linux, or I would have gotten it already.
TBH the nano is so great that I've moved from Windows to Linux on the desk(lap)top in 2023 :)
> That's 100% false.
Look at the comments from your own link, from actual users of Clevos who are trying to politely say it's not as good as claimed. There's a lot of astroturfing from linux related brands on sites like HN.
And FYI a tweaked fan curve is nothing to brag about, when they have components not even working like the fingerprint reader.
Now if you are curious, invest a few hunders in a used thinkpad and see for yourself.
Because it is also a common sentiment I've heard from others, on X1s. But also because it was my experience
> FYI, of the modern thinkpads, only those from the X1 series are good.
I'm sure if you research thoroughly and are lucky it xan work. I'd rather pay fir a company that fully backs Linux on the hardware.
> TBH the nano is so great that I've moved from Windows to Linux on the desk(lap)top in 2023 :)
I'm glad you did, welcome! (I've been running Linux since the 90s. :) I'm glad it's working for you, but I'd suggest it's a poor strategy even if it's perhaps an acceptable tactic.
> Look at the comments from your own link, from actual users of Clevos who are trying to politely say it's not as good as claimed.
Yes, because Clevos are not System76? That's rather my point. They're the people who bought Clevos and discovered the hard way that they're different in very salient ways.
> There's a lot of astroturfing from linux related brands on sites like HN.
Astroturfing? I've talked woth these folks and have used their hardware since the late to mid-aughts. Saying they're contradicting their claims, and they're saying up front they work for System76.
It's like claiming a RedHat dev is astroturfing when they say how the internals of the distro work. (And I'm highly sceptical of them having the disposable cash to splash out to hire astroturfers!)
> tweaked fan curve is nothing to brag about, when they have components not even working like the fingerprint reader.
It's not just a tweaked fan curve. The firmwares are entirely different.
The reply about the fingerprint reader sounds reasonable. They don't have nearly the leverage of Dell, Lenovo, or Apple to get the ODM to do what they want. This sounds reasonable (and not my own experience.) They're a small shop, in no small part because people keep showing Linux on Windows computers.
> Now if you are curious, invest a few hunders in a used thinkpad and see for yourself.
I could, or I could keep buying hardware that is for Linux, with support. I think my time is worth it.
Unless they are featuring coreboot, they just tweaked options in say the Insyde bios, so no, not entirely different.
> I could, or I could keep buying hardware that is for Linux, with support. I think my time is worth it.
Personally, I prefer quality.
Should you ever change your mind, get in touch, I'm preparing a sick arch image with absolutely perfect hardware support on wayland!
What about a fully Free CoreBoot firmware and EC?
https://github.com/system76/firmware-open https://github.com/system76/ec
> Personally, I prefer quality.
Me too! It's why I don't waste time with hostile hardware.
I'm also glad I can rely on the original, preinstalled Pop! or Ubuntu distro instead of having to trust some stranger's spin of Arch to get full hardware support, or do it all myself.
You had me curious, now you have me interested.
I will investigate the system76. I need something with ECC, ideally with a AMD Zen3 too.
The Gentoo wiki illustrates to me that Linux is about constructive solutions, not crowd sourced testing. If I have a Windows problem, I Google for the magic incantation that was inferred by a thousand desperate disparate voices. If I have a Linux problem, I learn about the components I am using, and how they are intended to behave and fit together.
* https://linux-hardware.org/ - this is where uploaded `hw-probe` results are collected and shared. It's easy to search for your exact model #/SKU and get a very detailed compatibility list, eg: https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=6677ca6be8
* Reddit is actually one of the best general sources for people talking about Linux compatibility issues, especially as most laptop OEMs don't have dedicated Linux support forums (only Framework and Lenovo do, AFAIK), so searching for "[model] linux report/review/compatibility/issues reddit" is usually a good sanity check as well.
* Oftentimes doing a search for the exact model and adding "linux bug" is the best way to get any bug reports that are in kernel, distro, or package trackers.
* IMO Notebookcheck is the best general/objective review site for laptops. While there are usually some more in-depth reviews that might give additional color on a laptop, the Notebookcheck reviews cover most of the important points with some very objective, and more importantly, standardized tests, whose results can be compared against their gigantic database of other reviews. Important things like screen quality (brightness, color gamut, PWM flicker), speaker quality (I find the percentile vs other laptops most useful there), and power usage (most importantly IMO, their WiFi v1.3 rundown test). While it's not the easiest to link to, they allow you to add comparisons to arbitrary laptop models for any of their numerical results. It's fantastic.
* Lastly, for Linux laptop compatibility in particular, I've found there a lot of documents in single developer/user's wikis, or as Github repos/gists writing up their experiences. I've done two of them myself since I found the other ones I've found to be so useful: https://github.com/lhl/linuxlaptops
This is a problem with reddit in general. For example, some variation of "how do I reduce System Data in iOS" has been asked 37,000 times. All one has to do is search. But redditors don't search.
Sure maybe this Thinkpad has nice hardware, but this laptop has three major flaws all others do:
1: Too many sub-variant models: Did you get one with a Qualcomm wifi chip, or an Intel wifi chip? Linux users do not have the luxury of not caring.
2. The ODM's never design these laptops with Linux in mind. Often a simple BIOS update is enough to make or break that experience.
3: No safety in numbers, no network effect: Maybe a few hundred people buy this Thinkpad model/variant to run Linux. The numbers simply are not enough for Lenovo and friends to financially care. There will likely never be enough eyes on this machine to make it a first rate experience.
This is a strength: many parts you can swap (or install later: put that empty WWAN port to a good use!)
> a simple BIOS update is enough to make or break that experience
In my experience, not with Lenovo, but personally I rarely update the BIOS. In fact, I prefer very old BIOSes, hoping for a bug that'll lead to interesting work or exploits: I don't want say the keyboard microcode holes plugged by marking the flash regions read only: that'd lock me out of exploiting them later, say to alter the keycodes!
> No safety in numbers, no network effect:
This is a very VERY wrong take: thinkpads are what linux hackers use the most, on both end of the spectrum:
When they are brand new, you have highly technical people and companies doing fixes or original work (ex: linaro work on the MHI driver for the LTE/5G chip). That's expensive, and likely outside the reach of Framework.
Then when they're old, you've got students, hobbyist etc who find new ways to teach old dogs new tricks: like motherboard swaps (X62, X210 etc)
The framework is interesting, and 10 years from now, maybe it'll be the right choice. Not now, not in the next 5 years.
It's at best a niche choice for people who don't want to tinker too much, and prefer something "average": you won't get bad surprises, but you won't get good ones either.
I like foldable OLED, nice hardware and all that you won't find in a framework now. Maybe later, which is why I really hope they'll be successful!
Yup. I'm going to break a few taboos here and post this: https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/338007901...
(Top comment from reddit a few days ago)
I wonder how long it'll actually take Framework. ThinkPads are built on experience going back to the first one by IBM Japan in 1992 and have certainly evolved through the years. The modularity of the Framework means that they can sell things in batches, so newer hardware becomes available as they make them. The question is how much time/money/effort they'll put into iterating the frame itself. Since they don't have to wait for a generation to elapse, the laptop frame team can just keep iterating as often as they're allowed to. A physical case issue with a gen 1 X1C Thinkpad had to wait until the gen two X1C were ready. The framework just has to wait for a factory to have available capacity and to have the funds to pay for it, decoupling the laptop's frame from the hardware inside of it.
> A physical case issue with a gen 1 X1C Thinkpad
Physical cases issues with thinkpad are extremely rare. Comparing the framework case to any random X1 thinkpad, I know which one I'd pick without hesitation.
> decoupling the laptop's frame from the hardware inside of it
That's addressing the wrong problem - and it's nothing special: Framework could have started like the X62 project and offered motherboards for current thinkpads.
It would have been less ambitious, more expansive and would've reduce the market size (as paying for a thinkpad + a framework motherboard would be strictly greater than just a thinkpad and making do with say the Thinkpad keyboard if you don't like it) but it would have guaranteed a better results.
I sincerely hope they succeed, because more choice is always better, but right now, they'll have to be reinventing the wheel for a while.
Removing technical specs from the equation, the Framework is cool, but the Thinkpad is generations ahead in terms of its build quality, tactile feel, and overall ergonomics. And it's not by a small margin - it's immediately palpable.
This is for several reasons: they're two different classes of notebooks with two different budgets; Lenovo has a lot more experience building laptops; Lenovo has access to a more sophisticated design, supply chain, and assembly process which they leverage to shape and mold the overall form better.
I'm hoping Framework catches up. I really like what they're trying to accomplish. But for now, theirs is not the laptop I slide into my backpack.
I also own both, and I feel the opposite. The Framework feels far better physically to me, especially the keyboard & larger touchpad. The rubberized texture on Thinkpad feels cheaper than the aluminium frame imo, the feet on the bottom of my Thinkpad all broke off within 6 months and the paint has all come off round the corners remarkably quickly (it gets carried in a backpack for 20 minutes most days plus a few flights, but nothing crazy).
There's rough parts on the Framework too that they're still improving (I agree the hinges are a touch flimsy, though in my 12th gen at least not problematically so) but overall it's been a notable improvement.
The Thinkpad X1 Carbon's "rubberized texture" is a valid comment. It's not rubber - it's an expensive carbon composite shell that makes the machine light as a feather. It's an acquired taste, but I like it and definitely appreciate how lightweight it makes the machine. It's not as sturdy as aluminum, but it's a fraction of the weight and not cold to the touch. It does feel expensive though. Like aerospace carbon fiber.
The Thinkpad's paint (textured finish) does wear and smooth out over time. That's a valid point. You will see darker worn regions around the palms and keys. If you're really handling the device, there's a chance that over years of use the dye at the corners begins to lighten. I've only seen that after five years of very heavy use, and it's only the very edge corners. Less than millimeters. You can probably Google and find example photos.
The Thinkpad's ever so slight departure from the standard keyboard layouts feels better to me. The keypress mechanics themselves feel more premium. Again, different stokes. I did enjoy replacing the Framework's keyboard for one of my choosing, though.
The Framework touchpad is a cheap knockoff of a Mac haptic touchpad. The depressed click feels gross. I'm hoping they improve this. I really don't like it.
I've never worn off the rubber feet of an X1 Carbon, but I have on other laptop models. You've given me a new fear as that's one of my biggest pet peeves. :P
I guess my biggest endorsement for the X1 is that I've owned two X1 Carbons (2016 and 2022) and plan to buy a third in five or six years, whenever my current one begins to show its age.
I'll probably try the new and upcoming Framework 16 at some point, but I won't get one this year and probably not for some time.
No they aren't perfect at Linux support but ThinkPads are generally much better than the other big vendors including Lenovo themselves.
Lenovo, Dell et al gets their devices certified with Canonical and Red Hat. OEMs usually work really closely with them.
https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/ht511743-how-to-d... https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/technical-board/2020-Janua... https://ubuntu.com/certified/202206-30347
There is a caveat to all of this - you will only ever be able to run the LTS version for the lifecycle.
With framework, you just hope that they follow intel/AMD reference design to the dot and that intel/AMD gets all the bugs out of the way.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X1_Carbon_(...
Also the most powerful and durable laptop, with the longest battery life.
I disagree.
Notchville? :-)))
While they are clutching their gaudy HP laptop.
for me functionality and ergonomics decide the purchase, if the device is "pretty" is very much down the list. I'm aways surprised by people who purchase computers for work worrying about what colour they are. Who cares, you're looking at the screen and keyboard, not the case when you are using it.
For example who thought that for EU keyboards the left shift should be short, gimped? And put the slash right next to it. WHY? Why crowd the keyboard keys together? Why fuck up the arrangement of the arrow keys? Why reorder or remove basic keys? Leave the keyboard the fuck alone, just do not try to innovate there. Leave the keyboard fonts alone too, just copy what macbook or thinkpad uses. Or hire someone who worked with fonts to recommend something similar.
Sometimes they also fuck up how your palm rests on the keyboard, by not giving enough space. Or make the touchpad off center. Add idiotic things to the touchpad, like a calculator (asus), or a scroll area. These are all factors that are letdowns.
Why put a 70% or so srgb shitty screen into a 1000+ USD notebook?
And the list goes on.
So if it's ugly (see above) I'm not buying it, so easy.
My employer alone would be responsible for several hundred X1 Gen 10s running Linux across various parts of our company, I suspect.
I'm very happy with my personal X1 Carbon, too. I'm very much NOT happy with the Librem laptop.
> NOT happy with the Librem laptop.
Then choose a different one?
> It's capitalism. Nobody actually cares.
Right, for Leovo anyway. So long as you continue to give them your money in exchange for lackluster Linux support, you will continue to get lackluster Linux support.
>> NOT happy with the Librem laptop.
> Then choose a different one?
I did. Lenovo. I don't have a problem.
> I personally am glad to live in the days when Linux is an option and will be quite annoyed if it goes away again due to others' short-sightedness.
Lenovo's Linux market is huge. It's not going away. People buy them because they work great with Linux.
There are other devices within the machine which also receive firmware updates, like the NVME drive and the Thunderbolt controller and so forth. It is absolutely trivial to find this information, to the point if you're running any fully-functional GNOME or KDE deployment the software update tools (GNOME Software, KDE Discover) will in fact prompt you to update when something is available.
Really wish I could run MacOS off of an external drive as a backup option but it is extremely picky(I've tried multiple drives, USB3.2 and TB3). Eventually being able to boot Asahi off of an external would be ideal, but if the SSD dies there will be no booting with how apple has done things.
This is becoming a harder pill to swallow with how long I'm trying to keep machines. Which sucks because Apple has put out the only ARM chip worth a damn for daily driver computing.
I even tried convincing myself to live off of a Microsoft Dev Kit just so I could have replaceable storage that doesn't brick the machine on death, but dear lord Qualcomm needs to put out some reliable drivers for windows, let alone linux.
I know a lot of people have complaints of the build quality of Lenovo ThinkPads (as opposed to IBM era ThinkPads), but X1 Carbons are pretty nice to have and work with. I have owned Dell Latitudes and HP EliteBook at different points – but the X1 Carbon was better at battery and responsiveness.
Stylus was wonky for a while. ForcePad only recently got full functional parity with Windows (although I haven't tested this yet). 200% scaling is ridiculous looking but fractional doesn't work well. Sound after suspend has issues and is a pain to set up on something like Arch. There have been hardware problems (sections of keyboard unresponsive even after hard power-down, resolves after plugging in a wall charger), takes 28 seconds from power button to desktop, drag-and-drop into Firefox doesn't work...
The list (which I have in a private Github repo) goes on and on...
In contrast, the Dell XPS 13 9370 from a few years back was so rock-solid, I was duped into believing that laptop vendors finally figured out Linux.
It's a shame, because the head of Linux at Lenovo genuinely cares and works hard to add support across their lineup, but it seems like he has to cope with whatever hardware and whatever team he has been given, and Lenovo introduces at least a dozen generation updates a year, it seems...
Anyway, I already summarized this 7 months ago on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32562329
[...] I'm not too happy with the Linux support [in the 9310] as well. I replaced Ubuntu with Arch (was the plan anyway) and had to fiddle with the fingerprint sensor, plus the WiFi is not suitable for pentesting (but worked out of the box on Arch). Bluetooth causes lockups, so I disabled that (maybe fixed with recent kernels?). Not exactly what I expected from a laptop that's sold with Linux. Next one will probably be not Dell. [end quote]
Maybe it's much better with the 9370.
In general, it's usually not a good idea to chase the latest models for Linux support. This is common advice with thinkpads, intel chipsets, but is also true for Dell in my experience, I have an older xps 13 9370, The wifi driver for Linux was super flaky for the first 6 months, it takes a while for the community to catch up and iron out issues with the hardware - no matter what their "Linux Support" advertising may say... I prefer buying new machines because I will use them into the ground, I guess the only way around this is to buy with overlap, knowing that it might be a bit of a brick initially, but if it's a well adopted model in the Linux community you have comfort in knowing it will reliably improve.
Especially the WiFi+BT chip was/is a huge gripe for me. These are nothing novel about these anymore (unlike e.g. P and E core scheduling). They could have used an Intel chip with proven great driver support on Linux, but instead went with a chip that's poorly supported from the getgo, from a manufacturer that doesn't really seem to care about Linux. I mean, not having promiscious mode and frame injections and all these sheningans isn't even an essential feature (I knew that I will probably need an extra adapter for that anyway, let alone to attach big antennas) - but BT crashing the system is a joke.
I get that the used chip is cheaper, it is soldered on the mainboard and they use the same mainboard for Windows and Linux machines to facilate economics of scale. But it's very frustrating, because from all the things I expected to work poorly, outright break or perform worse than on Windows (fingerprint, touchscreen, LTE modem, power consumption), that's really not the thing that I expected would happen.
(Also, the company has a contract with Dell and will usually buy nothing else, so my selection was limited - and getting another 2.5kg machine to carry around was something I was not willing to do).
Now, back to square one: not sure who will make my next laptop, but it will have Linux, and I'll probably curse about that a lot.
Here's an unboxing and mini-review: https://mstdn.io/@codewiz/108777933423983015
Current T14/X1/X13 laptops need at least a 5.19 kernel to work but 5.19 is buggy on them in multiple ways and should be avoided. 6.x kernels are very solid with these Thinkpads. Slackware current on my X13 was the most effortless linux install I have ever had on a Thinkpad, everything worked from the start.
If the webcam is IPU based, which it likely is (otherwise it would be supported out of the box) then it may _never_ "get sorted" at all. Not for the useful life of the machine, that is.
> Does this mean the camera stack is completely open?
> libcamera is open-source friendly which means all of libcamera itself is open source. libcamera uses a plugin system for Image Processing Algorithms (IPA) which are built as dynamically-linked shared objects, and are loaded at run-time. Open-source modules are identified based on digital signatures, while closed-source modules are isolated inside a Sandbox environment with restricted access to the system, reducing the impact of untrusted binary blobs.
I.e. libcamera needs ipu6-camera-hal (which is open-source, apache licensed) which in turn depends on ipu6-camera-bins (which is binary-only, closed source).
In order to use the camera, you need to have a bunch of closed-source libraries (ipu6-camera-bins).
The problem is that this generation of Intel platforms have migrated to a completely different approach to the handling of webcams. Previously, the webcams modules were intelligent black-boxes that transparently handled things like auto-focus and auto-exposure in their firmware. They presented themselves as just a framebuffer with a handful of tunable knobs. The v4l2 subsystem was a perfect fit for this approach.
Now with MIPI, things are very different. The OS must actively participate in tasks like autofocus (not rocket science, but not trivial either), be it by providing code that runs on the camera module, or by actively running algorithms on the CPU. No such thing exists right now, but as you pointed out, a few user-space projects are working on it. The big hurdle is the OS-level API. There is no successor for v4l2 yet, and kernel devs are still in the design phase. They recon it will take 1-2 years just to stabilize a reasonably general API [1]. There are proposals, but they are still controversial at the moment.
I dug into the issue because I considered buying this very laptop.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/YvnybHVFmpUJs4qi@kroah.com/
Not yet. Right. Some enthusiasts have patched the kernel to make it work though on expense of losing support of HDMI port and the brightness correction. I tried as well but failed -- got all the problems but the cam was not fixed, so I returned to the stock kernel
This. Linux or no, systemd or no - I need a laptop with a decent keyboard to type on, and it's been 10 years since Lenovo has offered those. Why can't those corporate managers get it through their heads that we need laptops to work with, not as a shiny fashion accessory?
So, yeah, keyboard is a thing for the working plebs. As long as it has a key to "launch videoconferencing". (and Apple is even worse in that regard)
You're looking at one of the later models. The P1 also has a 6-row chiclet keyboard.
Up until the X220, T420 and W520 models, Thinkpads had 7 rows of keys.
From bottom to top:
1. Fn/Ctrl/Alt... cursor keys 2. Shift/\/Z... 3. CapsLk/A/S... 4. Tab/Q/W... 5. |/1/2... 6. F1/F2... 7. Esc/mute/Vol down/Vol up/Mic/Thinkvantage/Power/PrtSc/ScrlLk/Pause/Ins/Del/Home/PgUp
(FWIW, I wrote this review.)
I have about a dozen Thinkpads myself, which is why I was interested to review this one and the Arm-based X13s.
I dislike the keyboards, and while they are among the best chiclet keyboards on the market , for me, it is fair and accurate to say that all chiclet keyboards are far worse than all pre-chiclet Thinkpad keyboards.
No Thinkpads since the 220/420/520 have been pleasant to type on. They are all poorer than the older models.
For me, I have tried several X1 models, Carbon and non-Carbon, and I find the keyboards to be poor. Bezels on keys (is that the right term?) make no real difference to me.
Any Thinkpad with a chiclet keyboard is inferior to any Thinkpad with a non-chiclet keyboard. I often hear people say things like "oh the early ones were poor but they've got better" or "it was bad at first but they improved".
I don't think they've improved. I thought they were junk when they were new (e.g. X230) and they're still junk (e.g. 2022 models).
Again, I am not proclaiming this as some universal truth. It's my opinion, and only that.
But there are a list of things I like about my older Thinkpads: great best-in-industry keyboards, easily end-user upgradable disk and RAM, lots of disk bays, lots of ports, removable batteries, easy disassembly without special tools, easy to replace keyboards, pointing devicer, and so on.
Modern Thinkpads lack all these. Junk keyboards, sealed units, few ports, few bays, not upgradable, not end-user maintainable.
Thinkpads were Rolls-Royce laptops, user-serviceable, a joy to use, and with a long lifetime that was readily extended.
New ones are, to me, overpriced glued-together plastic junk, as poor as any other make...
But they're still black and still have a Trackpoint. So people who never tried the old ones think that being a Thinkpad means an average laptop but it's black and has a red dot thing that they don't know how to use, and they don't get why people rate Thinkpads so highly.
Is linux support for ARM good enough for daily use?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35262156
I think the review and the discussion answer your questions. If not, do say so.
On the contrary. The aesthetics are meaningless. And I don't look at my keyboard, anyway. Only the tactile behavior matters. So: travel distance, resistance strength as a function of position, row layout.
Also, a touchpad is a place you need to watch out not to touch, or the mouse darts around and interrupts your workflow.
None of which are determined by being a chiclet, which is just keycaps and a bezel and none of which were addressed in the review or by that poster.
Touchpad does not really have much place in this discussion but since it was brought up, Thinkpads and linux make this a non-issue, use the trackpoint. I bind a key combo to toggle the touchpad on/off and if I am doing something which the trackpoint is not good for I can re-enable the touchpad with a keystroke.
I don't care how my keyboard looks. I don't want it to light up: I find that tacky and garish.
I care about how it feels under my fingers.
The more key travel, the better, up to a point. I don't need a mechanical typewriter. A centimetre or so is good, though. A millimetre doesn't cut it.
I want keys I can locate my hands on without looking. I want rake, staggered, sculpted keys. I don't want flat buttons: those are for picking the floor in a lift, not typing on.
I don't have the problems you have with trackpads, but when I'm typing on my lap, I disable it anyway.
I am happy that you like your machine. I have tried lots of them, including X230, X240, X1, X1C, X13s and others.
I deeply and thoroughly dislike them. Lenovo has destroyed one of the main reasons to own Thinkpads, IMHO.
If it'd have been my own choice, I'd have gone for a Framework laptop, but that wasn't an option since we have a fixed supplier. Apparently replacing components such as the keyboard on these models require taking apart the whole thing and replacing half the shell, compared to typical, more traditional Thinkpad models. I've had to replace the keyboard twice on my old T-series Thinkpad, and I'm really not looking forward to do that on this Yoga model (and I think the Carbon also requires taking it apart).
Not sure why the subdomain is download because you do not have to download anything.
This particular laptop supports s3 sleep (under config > sleep state).
I never had setup where everything was working :) Moved to Apple and instead of working on a OS, I started using it.
If you can't make this compromise, then FOSS OSes were never for you. Most hardware vendors don't contribute missing drivers or features upstream. The majority of the work is done by unpaid volunteers. It's a fallacy to compare things with Apple, who has in payroll software engineers to support a handful of devices with their custom OS. All these "haha XYZ doesn't work" criticisms have volunteers as their target. Why don't you contribute fixes for your device yourself? Nobody forced you to try Linux distros on your hardware.
How exactly is comparing a Linux distro to MacOS a logical fallacy? [0]
The logic for many people is very simple:
* I have work I need to do
* The open source "volunteer"-built[1] linux distro will unfortunately impose much more friction.
* The closed source MacOS/Windows will unfortunately impose way less friction.
* Therefore, MacOS is a better tool to get that work done.
It might be reversed for an exception like an embedded software engineer or something, but for most everyone else, it's sad but true.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy
[1] but let's be honest, aside from the kernel, it's pretty much a corporate game at this point
The assumption is that the two operating systems are comparable, for the reasons given in the same sentence after the comma.
And of course, no one is forcing you to run linux for your work.
Performance is fine for emacs, I don't have to worry about device drivers, I can run any form of application, I can treat the windows hypervisor as a remote client or as a VM for isolation purposes, I can run multiple versions of Linux, even at the same time, and it isn't as clunky and slow as using a traditional VM like virtualbox.
The only thing that makes me jealous is when this post talks about quiet fans, and the battery benefits of Linux.
Edit: I forgot to add one more benefit I ran into recently. If you need one version of a library or or tool for one project, and another version for another project, you don't have to monkey around with path scripts and bashrc to replace versions on the fly, you can just have an ideal environment for each project.
In my experience, battery life under windows is far superior due to more mature drivers. I'm lucky to get 4hrs out of my Framework laptop (with the i5-1240p) whereas Windows nets 6+. And that's with a 6.x kernel that has 12th gen support (I'm running Fedora as per Framework's recommendation). My old XPS 15 had much better battery life but a similar drop (percentage wise) running Ubuntu.
Another annoying thing about it that has nothing to do with the os is that the trackpoint randomly makes the pointer "drift" and theres nothing you can do when that happens except to wait for it to stop. It seems to be sort of a common thing on thinkpads and i have gotten lenovo to replace my trackpoint and its still an issue.
My next laptop will be a dell or something.
Ubuntu has been great on it aside from some occasional heat issues while sleeping. Running 6.x kernel now and just hoping that disappears with one of these updates but it happens rarely anyway. Overall very happy with it. Keyboard is way better than my last MacBook pro too.
I've been running Xubuntu on a Lenovo X1 Carbon 5th gen with since 2016 with no issues. Totally wiped Windows from the beginning. The only frustration I have is when using a non-hidpi external screen I have to change the dpi to match what the external screen is capable, so the laptop screen effectively becomes very small.
Any time I'm at an open source thing and see someone with a Lenovo I smirk because they're oiling the gears the machine they're also raging against.
It is however quite easy to migrate to a 5.19 using hwe packages in Ubuntu but I don't think they ever shipped 6.x for jammy
I am using it on a desktop, not a laptop, so I can't attest to laptop hardware support. Desktop hardware support (a cobbled-together PC) was great and everything just worked without installing drivers.
Everything just works. The level of polish is very high. The window manager supports tiling in a way that is extremely easy to use.
I installed windows on the same machine and windows is a disaster these days. I was chasing drivers, and never felt like I'd had them all properly installed. I regularly would end up with the Windows OS in a bad state and have to reinstall it
[1] https://fedoramagazine.org/lenovo-fedora-now-available/
[2] https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/configurator/cto/index.html?bun...
If you are here for the whole Linux experience Manjaro might be a good option. Based on arch, rolling release but relatively stable for that.
I would avoid smaller distros. Not because they are all bad. But because it's so easy to fix issues if you can just append 'Fedora XX' in Google and get it solved
Ubuntu LTS is good for servers IMO. But the user systems are unnecessary painful for plenty of reasons starting from the default driver support down to Ubuntu specific configurations you would never know without Google and Stack overflow.
https://9to5linux.com/you-can-now-install-linux-kernel-6-1-o...
Apparently, the kernels are not signed, though, so secure boot must be disabled to run it.
I met another tech worker who had this laptop. Also ran Linux on it, like me. They complained that the connection between the charger and the battery failed and the laptop is now bricked.
The laptop was a dream before that. But the battery->charger connection (which is just USB3) is painfully unreliable - buyer beware.
tl;dr: I gave up on a 27" 4k (163dpi) screen because working with 150% scaling, vim in the terminal never was a sharp as on the WQHD (108dpi), and working exhausted me quickly. Sold the 4k, got a 109dpi ultrawide and am happy again.
Long rant: I've been using multi screen setups for a long time (both privately and professionally). So when one of my home displays finally had to be replaced, I went with a nice, modern LG 4k 27" (163dpi) with a great panel; figuring I'll get a second one of these if I'm happy with the first one.
Since my other screen was still a WQHD 27" (2560x1440, ~108dpi) I had to scale 100% on the old screen and 150% on the new one. This of course worked poorly (both in Windows and Linux), but I didn't expect this to be great anyway. Since the age of my WQHD was way too obvious anyway, I got rid of that and only lived with a single 4k screen for a few months. While the display itself was amazing, scaling on Linux (KDE on Arch) was a pain. At 150% everything had a nice size, but for the love of god I could get no combination of font face, font size, terminal emulator and scaling that allowed me to happily work with source code in vim for 8h per day, and that did not make the rest of the UI unusable small (and usually I'm the guy who is told "Oh, that's so small! How can you even work with that?"). Eventually I realized that I needed glasses, but while those did slightly improve the situation on the receiving end, it didn't fix the issues with fractional scaling.
In the end, instead of getting another 4k screen, I sold the 4k again and got a 34" UWQHD (3440x1440, ~109dpi) which is 34% wider than my old 27" WQHD (I could continue to rant how I had to order three well-reviewed displays until I got one that was good, but I'll spare you). I'm now happy again.
Honestly, I am not sure if fractional scaling will ever work really well. In the end, it is always fractional. Of course instead of rendering at 1x resolution and then scale up by 1.5x, we could render at 3x resolution and the scale down by 2x, but then every UI framework needs to be adapted, old applications need to be made aware of this, and what about those that are not maintained anymore... and not even considering the extra CPU time (and power draw on laptops) to render four times the pixels.