Periodic reminder: if you plan on using Linux, before buying any laptop, always check the Arch Linux wiki first.
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.
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.
Another periodic reminder: Whenever you buy a new laptop don't just nuke the Windows install that comes out of the box and go directly to installing Linux, but boot into it first and let Windows Update install all firmware updates as those updates might not be available under Linux.
I know mate, I wasn't trying to steal your thunder. I was happy to finally see someone else cover this important first step of using Windows to get your FW updated so that you ensure smooth Linux experience after install, and wanted to emphasize, from personal experience, how important this step is to having a good linux experience after install.
Both you and GP are right, depending on the laptop manufacturer.
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.
Read my comment again please. Slowly and carefully. Especially this part:
>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.
That's fair. Also, not everyone can pay the premiums due to having a much smaller market either, I suppose.
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.
Because you already have a laptop? Or they got a laptop from someone like family or an employer?
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.
If Linux only works on Linux only hardware, then Linux enthusiasts should stop preaching to the Average Joes that it's the year of the Linux and everyone can easily switch from Windows to Linux and everything "just works(TM)", if that isn't completely true, or just be openly honest about the caveats from the start, as most people switching to Linux aren't going to buy new machines just for Linux, but will most likely seek to reuses existing ones they have.
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.
I don't think most enthusiasts actually believe slapping Linux on any random piece of Windows hardware will Just Work 100%. Maybe 90%, but there are lots of edge cases. Modern hardware is extremely complicated, and there will be lots of random glitches unless you either do lots of homework and/or are extremely lucky.
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?
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.
Nope, Windows goes during partitioning, I'm not going to boot into that stuff even once. If I bought the laptop it's because I did my research and I am confident that I will be able to fully manage it from Linux.
I don't get what you were trying to add here besides things that have already bee said.
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.
I keep the windoze partition on my thinkpad if nothing else to update the thunderbolt 4 dock firmware, as the TB3 dock just finally got fwupd support within the last few days and no telling if/when the TB4 will. It's an important part of my use, and was and is quite quirky under linux since I got it that has improved with firmware updates. I just resize it down to like 100gb that windoze can keep itself and the lenovo hardware updated when needed with their eazy button app native to their build, and build anything linux after.
If I hadn't booted my laptop into Windows (once, to updated the bios), Linux wouldn't have had working audio. And updating the bus from Linux can be a massive pain in the ass, depending on the vendor.
I find the pragmatic, if ideologically galling, choice is to leave Windows around permanently, shrinking its partition as small as it will go. This preserves the ability to run any vendor-supplied utilities in perpetuity, as well as leaving the door open to reliably run some Windows software in a life-or-death situation.
Automatically, on boot? That's rather naughty. I've never encountered this but I boot into Windows with a frequency approaching "never", and I would certainly never intentionally permit it to install updates. I would be so livid if it wrecked my boot sequence without user interaction.
If you use the windows boot record as the parent boot instead of grub you can mostly get around this issue. It’s what I did on my gaming rig. I mostly use that as a development machine these days, but occasionally boot into windows for games.
This also holds true for pesky things like displaylink, docs, USB hubs that may need a firmware update to resolve issues with linux. Also I think some Lenovo laptops need an update to Intel ME, which for a long time and depending on your hw was only packaged as a Windows .exe
I tell friends to do a bit of digging which includes looking at what's supported but also being keen to support vendors, and the models they sell, that are supported under LVFS [0]. Booting Windows, for anything, if Linux is your daily driver is a PitA. Otherwise there's always Rufus [1] and booting into a DoS environment for firmware updates (if supported) and I believe there's still potentially ways to get "Windows to Go" working still with older Windows versions.
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'm always surprised on r/linuxhardware (another good resource) the number of people that ask questions without doing basic searches online. I'd definitely second the Arch and Gentoo Wikis as excellent community maintained resources. Also:
* 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
> I'm always surprised on r/linuxhardware (another good resource) the number of people that ask questions without doing basic searches online.
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.
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.
I have the X1 Carbon Gen9 and I've used Arch as my daily driver for over 15 years I think it is now. Just want to mention in case it piqued your interest that I recently moved from Arch to NixOS on my X1C9 to help bake my whole system into a set of functional configs. It's particularly nice that I was able to functionally describe my whole system including packages, quirks, patches, configs (system + dotfiles) in a reproducible way.
Also I think you'll love the machine - it's certainly my favorite Linux laptop.
Yes, as long as you've purchased a machine that they offer with a linux distro pre-installed, or that they've certified (ex: Dell only ships Ubuntu but will certify hardware for Redhat compatibility).
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.
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.
The problem with this is that set of laptops is so small and restrictive. It's mostly just Clevo rebadges which feel kinda cheap and have design choices that are becoming outdated like 16:9 screens and a couple of models from Dell and HP.
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.
Many of the names that come to mind when mentioning Linux-native laptops like system76 and Tuxedo Computers use Clevo as their ODM. They make some tweaks to the hardware and might change the firmware, but at the end of the day, they're still Clevo complete with aforementioned warts (like 16:9 screens and questionable build quality). There are exceptions like Starlabs Systems and Purism, but they're the exception and not the norm.
All vendors use an ODM. That doesn't mean that buying from the ODM directly will get you the same experience as buying from them. The vendor cam work with the ODM to customize hardware and firmware, so "rebadge" is a really poor way of describing it.
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.
> The vendor cam work with the ODM to customize hardware and firmware, so "rebadge" is a really poor way of describing it
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.
> 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
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.
> 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.
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.
> You only had one? How can you pretend to know a brand with 1 model?
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.
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.
Yes, but in the case of Linux laptop companies using Clevo it’s much closer to a rebadge. They’re all built around the same off-the-shelf designs, which means they share flaws in common, which was my whole point: there’s a serious lack of choice in Linux laptops if those quirks of Clevo designs are dealbreakers for you.
Now that Framework is coming out with AMD models, I find myself suddenly less excited about Linux on laptops from all other vendors.
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.
There are plenty of enterprises that run linux in server farms as well as workstations. You have to remember that Lenovo has plenty of experience with linux this way. They have official ISOs and their metapackages are delivered with distro installers.
Lenovo, Dell et al gets their devices certified with Canonical and Red Hat. OEMs usually work really closely with them.
Arch wiki claims the laptop mentioned in this article supports the fingerprint reader out of the box with `fprintd`. You do have to be careful about purchasing the variant with the proper webcam (e.g. don't go for the 2.8k OLED model), because only one of the two variants works.
For ThinkPads they care a lot more. For example my P14s Gen 2 AMD lets you set the sleep state to S3 in the BIOS. This is labeled as "Linux". My W520 lets you disable the discrete Nvidia card in the BIOS when other laptops of the same time period would not and would assume you're using Windows and it's driver to disable the card. When graphics switching laptops first launched Linux support was super flakey and having the Nvidia card on all the time was a huge power draw. Even getting the card turned off was a chore on my Asus which lacked a BIOS toggle.
No they aren't perfect at Linux support but ThinkPads are generally much better than the other big vendors including Lenovo themselves.
I own both the ThinkPad X1 Carbon and the Framework 13.
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.
> the Framework is cool, but the Thinkpad is generations ahead in terms of its build quality, tactile feel, and overall ergonomics
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.
I also prefer the rubberized carbon shells to bare aluminum, but let's not swallow their marketing pitch whole - what you're touching is in fact a rubberized plastic. Carbon fibers are (almost) always encased in a resin, which would be shiny and slick unless the manufacturer paints it in that grippy rubbery stuff. My old XPS had a similar coating on its carbon fiber, and even my old shitty HTC phone had a similar coating on its plain plastic back.
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!
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.
I don't see that as a problem of iterations, but scale:
Framework just doesn't have the same engineering capacity as Lenovo (at least, not yet). They are bound to make errors, or make suboptimal choices because the optimal ones are costly. It's the same for smaller manufacturers like GPD.
> 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.
I think you underestimate the Thinkpad commitment to Linux, and the effect the community has. I'd like to know officially, but since they target workstations there are probably a low but countable % of users that run Linux. They officially support it for many models, and sell a few models with it installed. Their people are passionate about it, give presentations etc. I've never experienced the hardware switcharoo for low level hardware like wifi chip, they do that for storage and display panels, but that doesn't matter for Linux compatibility.
For example, where I work (Red Hat), Thinkpads are the standard laptop for Linux. (Not sure what % overall run Linux but it's a very non-trivial number.)
I doubt there are many. People who are actually developing for RHEL locally obviously run RHEL. Most everyone else running Linux runs Fedora, whether self-supported or, now, company-supported--or CentOS Stream.
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.
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.
> 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.
I get orders of magnitude better support from Lenovo than Librem. And that's just from the company. And the community is also much better for Lenovo, support wise.
>> 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.
I think if Asahi Linux delivers, Apple laptops will take over the Linux laptop market. Good performance per watt, fewer models that sell in great numbers, great displays, and they aren't shitty plastic boxes that flex and creak. If you have a hardware problem, reload macOS and you can get it fixed in the Apple Store across town.
My main problem is a dead laptop if the storage dies. (I still own a M1 Air anyway)
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.
So how much does the "ugly" factor into your purchase decisions?
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.
Do I have to use something that is ugly when I pay a lot for it? Nope, they can keep it. I detest the control freaks who deliberately gimp certain parts of the notebook, just, because, they can or just simply doesn't have the eye for it, because they are so cheapskates to hire an industrial designer and/or their standards are subpar.
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.
Looks a tad bit better, but the font used on that keyboard... is one of the worst I've ever seen. You can exorcise devils with that. Just open it... whooosh, and it's done.
From personal experience, they have mostly worked flawlessly if you picked one of the standard flavors, such as Ubuntu/Fedora. I had a 14" 8th generation i5 X1 Carbon (c. 2019) and Ubuntu worked well after throwing out Windows 10. There were no touchpad or screen flickering issues either.
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.
Their issues are entirely consistent with mine on the first-gen ThinkPad Z13:
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...
Careful with the Dell, it's not sunshine and rainbows there either. Got the XPS 13 9310 in the Dev Edition (that is, with Ubuntu pre-loaded). I'm using that machine for Pentesting, so I went with Arch (+ Black Arch).
[...] 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]
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.
When the ad says "Linux support" I expected well tested hardware. It's not 2001 anymore, the era of GPU switcheroo is also mostly over (at least for this kind of laptop), and we're beyond wrapping NDIS drivers into the Kernel because we have a much better manufacturer support for Linux these days.
Even a decade ago I would have agreed with you, but not in 202x.
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).
The quick version without all the vague distro talk and a few more Thinkpads thrown in.
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.
> Linux supports the machine well, with the exception of the webcam – and we're confident that will get sorted soon
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.
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
It's a legitimate question but in this case my personal conclusion is that GP is right, convenient MIPI camera support is not coming for another 2-3 years.
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.
Depending on your definition of "sorted". For the foreseeable future, it is going to require proprietary libraries (userspace ones, not just firmware blobs). Until that changes, it won't be supported OOB on any distro.
The libcamera project is already a free userspace library supporting the IPU and exposing the relevant bits to applications. I still don't get why people say that there's nothing on the horizon.
Because it still depends on the closed source libraries:
> 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).
Because I bought my first IPU device in 2016. libcamera has been "in the horizon" before then. I'd bet that most laptops bought today will be obsolete by the time their webcams work.
> "... if you don't mind Lenovo's modern chiclet keyboards. For this particular vulture, the older seven-row design was vastly better, and we concur with our colleague who decried the modern "godawful chiclet six-row keyboard.""
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?
The current X1/X13 have the best laptop keyboard I have used since my old T42, they are quite nice to type on. The whole chiclet or not thing is primarily aesthetic, having little bevels on the edges of the keys does not affect use, I suppose if you have long finger nails you could use them to depress the key on the bevel but that seems rather awkward. 6 vs 7 row could be an issue for some but I personally don't mind having to hit the fn key to adjust volume or screen brightness.
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.
You strongly disagree that the X1 and X13 have the best laptop keyboards that I have used since my old T42? Or that the side bevels serve no purpose beyond aesthetics? I don't think you can make a case for either but feel free to try.
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.
> The whole chiclet or not thing is primarily aesthetic
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.
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.
> travel distance, resistance strength as a function of position, row layout.
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.
What is this 7th row of keys you’re talking about? My P1 thinkpad has 6 rows, just like my 75% external mechanical keyboard. No problem getting work done with just 6 rows, as long as I don’t visit HN too often…
I’m not so optimistic. I feel the opposite: managers are convinced that "real" work is all about copy/pasting slides in powerpoint and clicking cells in excel. In fact, most of them are happy to "work" on their phone or tablet. Nearly none of them could touchtype anyway.
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)
I'm siding with you. I add that maybe the new keyboard costs a little less than the old one and that's all some managers need to decide between two options.
I just got a new Thinkpad Yoga from work. It came with Ubuntu pre-installed, but I installed Arch. I'm actually surprised this model has the option of Ubuntu when ordering. So far so good; now that I've got something newer, I'm trying out the current state of Wayland, and there's some issues there still with KDE and SDDM and such.
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).
I have the Gen 9 running on Fedora and while it's been mostly smooth sailing, it struggles a lot with Wifi on my new mesh (after moving home) and screensharing on it via google meet (and other apps) is painfully slow to the point where there could be visible latency between me typing and vim updating
Which mesh routers? Because the ones Google provides along with Google Fiber are garbage. 1 gigabit internet and I can barely scrape 40mbps in our living room.
I just ordered an X1 Yoga (like a carbon but convertible w/touchscreen + stylus) and was able to order it with Ubuntu Linux on it. Gonna wipe it and put Arch anyways, but it was $100 cheaper as there was no Windows license fee.
Just having a look at that, it's a simulator for BIOS their setup utils. There's a sleep state called "S3 Linux" in the P14s Gen 3, described as: "optimised sleep state for versions of linux that are not compatible with suspend-to-idle"
Haha:
10 years later after I tried Linux od desktop nothing changed.
Distro A: X things works, Y things doesn't
Distro B: Y things works, X things doesn't
Distro C: Partialy X things works and partialy Y things works
I never had setup where everything was working :)
Moved to Apple and instead of working on a OS, I started using it.
The following is not a reply to you, but to people who say "haha XYZ doesn't work" and "year of Linux desktop".
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.
Of course they're comparable. They're operating systems that run on the same hardware form factor and attempt to solve about the same set of problems. The fact that one is much better than the other doesn't make them incomparable. That is to say, the fact that comparing them is inconvenient for one of the sides doesn't make the comparison invalid.
Personally, I am growing comfortable with Windows Subsystem for Linux.
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.
I broke my x1 in 2020 after using it daily while travelling the world doing just about everything with it for four and half years. Never had crazy heating issues and speed issues. And it just straight up died for no reason. Just 3 weeks after handing in my PhD thesis. I loved that thing.
I have a thinkpad X1 bought in 2019(idk which gen) its horrible as a linux laptop, mainly because of the scaling issues. But also the touchpad is not good. Its quite bad in windows but even worse in linux. The battery get empty much faster in linux as well.
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.
Same here, I have spent an INORDINATE amount of hours trying to fix this exact same trackpad issue on two generations of Thinkpad X-series, and it just. doesn't. work. My next linux laptop will be a Framework.
I got a Thinkbook 13s that is basically the same specs as this but was half the price and not razor thin. With the Intel 12th gen chips that's arguably a good thing though if you want to be able to let them fly a bit before thermal throttling.
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.
One thing I will say about the Gen 10 that most of the reviews also caught is that the battery life is a step down from the gen 9 because of the decision to switch to the Intel P-series processor. If you prefer longer battery life, you can pick up a gen 9 for less money, which is what I did.
I haven't been happy with my work Lenovo laptop. (New release in the last year or two) The fans sounds like a jet at takeoff thrust, thermals aren't great, and the dock glitches and disconnects monitors frequently. Mine had an an early-life screen failure too.
You can get refurbished 5th gens for cheap because they had a recall for an issue where a screw could possibly pierce the battery. I’m using one as a daily laptop with Ubuntu and have no complaints. Even the firmware updates automatically via apt.
I have a T15 gen 1 running pop_os! like others I loaded linux right at the start everything works except the camera basically appears like it doesn't exist no matter what I do, its as if its not detected at a hardware level.
Any idea why with xOrg keyboard and pointer are "laggy and unresponsive"? That's never been my experience, unless some program is stealing CPU cycles. Of course I never used one of these new laptops and CPUs.
I'm not saying that I think this should be the default, as I know many people love it, but I would like the option to buy a Thinkpad without the TrackPoint. I am just not a fan of it.
As a boot-to-emacs kind of user I would prefer a laptop without a trackpad. They are getting so large on modern laptops it is impossible to comfortably type without accidentally moving the cursor.
I would have loved to use the one on my t480s but unfortunately the placement of the middle button make it impossible for me. I hear people are using it with two hands.
Ubuntu was maybe not a good choice to start with. I installed it recently to find that it runs old kernals and old versions of software. i.e. OBS was a few versions behind.
Fedora might be a better choice. ThinkPad has a partnership with Fedora[1] and Fedora uses recent Linux kernel versions. Lenovo sells this exact model (Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 10) with Fedora pre-installed as an option.[2]
Fedora is a good choice for any new or old Linux user. It's a much more stable user environment than Ubuntu is today and well documented.
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.
I have been running Pop OS every day for about a year and I can't recommend it highly enough.
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
I have this laptop. The connection between the charger and the battery died, roughly 13 months in.
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.
The problematic scaling is really a huge pain point. And it is not even recent, since HiDPI screens are on the market for a long time now. Both for desktops and on laptops.
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.
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_(...