Linux on ThinkPad X13s Gen 1

ThinkPad X13s Gen 1 running Debian 11, Regolith-Desktop w/ Dracula look and neofetch

This is to document my ordeal #EmbraceTheSuck journey and work-in-progress of daily driving a Lenovo ThinkPad X13s Gen 1.

Actually, it's more a loose, semi-structured link collection w/ pointers to all the various efforts that I'm aware of or stumbled upon to make Linux a thing on the ThinkPad X13s.

Windows 11

  • Install BIOS Updates (via Windows App Lenovo Commercial Vantage)
  • Install Windows 11 Updates, incl. Windows 11, version 22H2
  • Activated Windows Feature Hyper-V, installed WSL2 and distros Debian and Ubuntu.
  • Installed Visual Studio Code along w/ some other native-arm Windows Apps, just to see…

Linux

The state of Linux on the X13s is still pretty much WIP (work-in-progress), but NO it has not stopped a few month ago.

The community is eagerly awaiting the latest kernel works to arrive in distros.

Lenovo BIOS/ Firmware

BIOS Update Utility for Windows 11 ARM - ThinkPad X13s Gen 1 (Type 21BX, 21BY)

There is a new BETA Linux option in the ThinkPad X13s BIOS/ firmware version 1.49, which says:

Turn this switch on to boot Linux. Turn this switch off to boot Windows.

Likely linux friendly ACPI tables 🤔

In my testing—though for now only w/ i) Ubuntu 23.04 (Lunar Lobster) Daily Build and ii) Fedora 38 Beta arm64 ISOs—I didn't manage to boot, as of yet…

But promising as hell!! 🤩

Debian—WIP

I installed Debian by following along the instructions for flashing and installing Debian (Installer for Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 laptops) compiled by Linaro (link posted by Lenovo's Mark Pearson on Lenovo Community Forum Post "Re:Does anybody know if there is work being done to integrate X13s (ARM-processor) with linux?").

Linaro's team also contributes here: aarch64-laptops, e.g. aarch64-laptops/linux/tree/lenovo-x13s.

Notes:

  • I created the bootable USB driver on Linux via the awesome balenaEtcher application.
  • I shrinked the Windows drive on my 1TB disk by 768000 MB, resulting in 750 GB of "Unallocated" space.
  • I would have preferred to install Debian with full-disk encryption and a custom sized swapfile, but this has to wait for another day 🤷‍♂️
  • Modifying the boot order: FS15:\> bcfg boot add modf 0 EFI/debian/DtbLoader.efi "Debian"
  • After "updating" to Debian testing I had to re-enable os-prober to create a custom GRUB menu entry for Windows as documented here
  • Uninstalled regolith-desktop (until arm64 repositories for Regolith are available) and re-installed GNOME via tasksel.
  • debian.org RescueLive steps to chroot into locally installed system from live cd

A loose collection of links to public web resources about various attempts of making Linux on X13s a thing:

"NVMe, SDX55 (5G) and WiFi enabled on the Lenovo Thinkpad X13s and Compute Reference Device. ADCs and thermal zones are introduced for the same. Lenovo Thinkpad X13s gains LID switch support."
(src ref: cnx-software.com: Linux 6.2 release – Main changes, Arm, RISC-V, and MIPS architectures)

Fedora—WIP

Results of Matthew Miller's poll What do you think about Fedora Workstation on an ARM-based Lenovo laptop?

Fedora developers are aiming for it being supportable/usable in time for Fedora 38, at some point before that, some consumable images will be released for testing.

src refs: fedoraproject.org/wiki. Fedora Linux ARM mailing list

Kernel and other necessary bits for Fedora on the Lenovo x13s.

You can download Fedora for ARM prerelease builds—as of writing of Fedora 38—from here. Alternatively the ongoing development builds from here.

Arch—WIP

Ubuntu—WIP

Installer for Lenovo X13s
work started (src ref: discourse.ubuntu.com)

As of late February I guess I totally share the assessment of user ravenpi in the Manjaro forum:

"I’m gonna guess the X13s is a viable platform come Ubuntu 23.10 – since they’ve already chosen kernel 6.2 for 23.04, and the bulk of the important changes are in 6.3, I just don’t see it happening by April release. However, if the installer works, perhaps an update to 6.3 would be feasible before 23.10."
(src ref: forum.manjaro.org)

NixOS—WIP

usermode x86 and x86-64 emulation for arm64/ aarch64

FEX—WIP

FEX allows you to run x86 and x86-64 binaries on an AArch64 host, similar to qemu-user and box86.

The GPU has finally come alive on the Lenovo X13s!
(src ref: Tweet)

FEX: Lenovo X13s Linux (Ubuntu) installation—AWESOME write-down of install process 🤩

BSDs

OpenBSD

General Resources on Lenovo, ThinkPad & ARM