Thinkpad X13s

Page to keep track of Linux support development for Thinkpad X13s (SoC codename sc8280xp), the first Thinkpad with ARM CPU.

Most of following informations come from #aarch64-laptops on OFTC, #fedora-arm on Libera.chat and arm[AT]lists.fedoraproject.org. Upstream infos change on daily basis, so this page may be outdated, therefore read it with pinch of salt / cum grano salis.

Bootable images

Fedora Rawhide images are bootable as of the 15th of December, 2023. There are, unfortunately some boot arguments that need to be added to boot successfully

• The kernel must be booted with arm64.nopauth clk_ignore_unused pd_ignore_unused rd.driver.blacklist=msm
• A recent firmware must be on the machine, and the linux/DT mode must be selected in the FW menus.
  • Recommend minimum version:
    • Version: N3HET84W (1.56 )
• A 6.5 or newer device tree must be placed on the ESP of the internal NVMe disk and named sc8280xp-lenovo-thinkpad-x13s.dtb
  • ex: /boot/efi/sc8280xp-lenovo-thinkpad-x13s.dtb
  • as a workaround you can add a devicetree line in grub to load the dtb until it can be put in place on the ESP
  • Debian has instructions on how to achieve while running windows
• to boot from USB you need to add modprobe.blacklist=qcom_q6v5_pas to the boot arguments, this keeps the USB from being reset and the storage device being renamed mid boot.

• Once the system is running, installing the x13s copr, will pull in the remaining dependencies and correct a few configuration items:

  • dnf copr enable jlinton/x13s; dnf install x13s

    • Reboot

• After major kernel updates, it is probably wise for the time being to run

  • cp /boot/dtb-`uname -r`/qcom/sc8280xp-lenovo-thinkpad-x13s.dtb /boot/efi 

Known Problems

• Audio works but is quiet
• TPM support is missing
• 5G Modem
  • While waiting on a new release of ModemManager we can take the following steps

sudo ln -s 105b /usr/share/ModemManager/fcc-unlock.available.d/105b\:e0c3
sudo mkdir -p /etc/ModemManager/fcc-unlock.d
sudo ln -sft /etc/ModemManager/fcc-unlock.d /usr/share/ModemManager/fcc-unlock.available.d/*

• Virtualization is not yet available. The UEFI is not yet exposing the EL2 (exception level) which is required to run VMs

Similar pages

• https://github.com/ironrobin/archiso-x13s/wiki/Feature-Support
• https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Thinkpad/X13s
• https://en.opensuse.org/HCL:ThinkpadX13s