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Comment by pkaye | Hacker News Reader

So X1 Carbon works well with Linux?

Yes! After using MacBook Pro for almost a decade, I moved back to Linux for my laptop two years ago. I installed the Manjaro i3 image and I was expecting that it will take almost a week to tweak the settings so that all the hardware works and was pleasantly surprised that everything worked out of the box (everything other than fingerprint scanner but that was a known limitation).

I can second this with the addendum I'm on an X1 Yoga and the touchscreen works out of the box, it took me about 2 minutes to get the screen auto-rotating as well using this script. https://gist.github.com/mortie/e725d37a71779b18e8eaaf4f8a02b...

Zero issues for me. They even released a firmware update for the fingerprint scanner to add Linux support a few months ago. I have a 7th gen.

ubuntu or fedora?

I have used Ubuntu and Arch on this laptop.

I have the 7th gen. It works OK. Trackpad sucks. Resolution is high and Ubuntu does not scale things properly. Fingerprint reader doesn't work. Speakers are incredibly quiet. Suspend / hibernate does not work reliably.

> Resolution is high and Ubuntu does not scale things properly.

The 7th gen has two different screen options. I gather you got the higher density one. I don't use Ubuntu but I have the same display and don't have scaling issues. I use Arch & OpenBSD and configure everything myself though.

> Speakers are incredibly quiet.

Mostly a PulseAudio issue (doesn't play well with 4 speaker configurations). Has multiple workarounds (2 speaker only and to use all 4). I got it working in an hour. Full fix coming in next major version.

> Suspend / hibernate does not work reliably.

Has had a fix since February

Yes, it works incredibly well.

Also, Lenovo now directly supports Linux on some of their laptops, including the X1.

8th Gen might not be so hot yet from what I've heard. 7th Gen minor issues. 6th and prior are flawless.

What have you heard about the 8th Gen? That with Manjaro would be my prime candidate to move from Macbook

I’ve been using it with pop!_os for a few weeks. It’s been flawless for everyday use (including a working fingerprint reader, which I haven’t had on previous versions carbon X1s.

I have a gen 3, while the screen could be better, it’s not bad. Trackpad of course isn’t anywhere near Mac level but the system is pretty good.

avoid the 7th gen though.

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