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I am a big fan of Ubuntu and I use it with Gnome in my Dell Latitude E7440. I am about to join a company where I have an option between a MacBook Pro and a ThinkPad. I am planning to go with the latter. However, I would like to know if there are any existing issues between Ubuntu and the new X1 Carbon (3rd gen) before I request for the laptop. So if there are people who have any experience with this, I'll deeply appreciate their inputs. Thanks!

aa8y
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It works with Ubuntu 14.10 fine. There are some button problems that are being worked out. I've heard some stuff about external monitor issues, but haven't tested it. I'm typing this to you from my 3rd Get X1 Carbon now. It is a beautiful machine. The more I use it the more I find myself fond of it.

I'm dual-booting and had no problems setting that up. Bluetooth, wireless, suspend and all that are working. It has some hardware hibernation thing which I understand doesn't work, but suspend is fine for my purposes. I don't see much of a difference for my workflow.

I've not seen the graphical issues that are reported around the web. That may be I have a different screen or it may be solved at this point.

Current recorded Bug I know of: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1414930

Screen brightness is the other issue I'd really like to see fixed.

EDIT: Screen brightness adjustments are simply solved by loading the thinkpad_acpi module. It isn't detected properly apparently.

EDIT2: The BIOS "Deep Sleep" is working. This appears to be a hibernate equivalent that is entirely BIOS related. I can't figure out what the Ubuntu report means that identifies this as a problem.

Also, I forgot to mention, to get dual booting, I had to turn off "Secure Boot" in the BIOS or windows would fail to start from GRUB after I installed Ubuntu. As soon as I turned that off, Windows 8.1 was working great again in its shrunk partition.

flickerfly
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  • I am sure it's a pretty good machine. But if setting the brightness and making the trackpad keys is an issue, it seems pretty serious to me. How do you get work done? – aa8y Mar 20 '15 at 23:35
  • It is just the buttons above the track pad, not the ones that are built into the pad itself. The workaround currently sacrifices the pad buttons for the ones above the pad. That fix is in a coming systemd version. The brightness doesn't bother me, but I believe it can be managed from the client if I took a moment to look it up. – flickerfly Mar 20 '15 at 23:56
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    Turns out brightness is just fixed with loading thinkpad_acpi module – flickerfly Mar 21 '15 at 03:27
  • Since you checked for brightness, can you please also check for if the thinkpad_acpi module also works for hibernation? I think there is some information about it here: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Thinkpad-acpi – aa8y Mar 21 '15 at 04:30
  • It seems that Ubuntu 14.10 removed Hibernate from the menu. Suspend works fine.

    I tried 'pm-hibernate', but that flashed a black screen and came back right away. This may be relevant. I read somewhere that hibernate in this model was using a new technology or something. http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/hardware/201411-16196/

     – flickerfly Mar 21 '15 at 04:37
  • Hibernation is disabled by default since 12.04, you can find instructions for 13.10 onward here, could you please check these? I don't see any detailed explanation why hibernation shouldn't work on this machine on the certification page, where I would have expected a link to a bug report. If it works after enabling the menu entry, then this should be corrected :) (Yes I got the black screen too when I tried pm-hibernate without the 13.10 polkit rule.) @aa8y As an avid trackpoint user myself I still carry a mouse around when I need to get work done. – LiveWireBT Mar 21 '15 at 06:56
  • To understand how the BIOS of this machine handles hibernate: https://push.cx/2015/dual-booting-arch-linux-on-lenovo-x1-carbon-3rd-gen – flickerfly Mar 22 '15 at 03:21
  • I haven't done anything to change the config from what is listed above, but have seen Ubuntu come out of what the BIOS calls "Deep Sleep Mode" without any problem. This sounds like the BIOS driven Hibernate to me. – flickerfly Mar 24 '15 at 14:27
  • @flickerfly This technology is called (Intel) Rapid Start, Matthew Garrett also blogged about it http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/26022.html. It shouldn't be confused with other issues related to hibernate or be associated with hibernate at all to avoid confusion, it should be called by it's (brand) name. – LiveWireBT Mar 24 '15 at 14:46
  • I just installed it and the only problem I have got so far I solved it doing this: http://askubuntu.com/questions/584192/graphical-issues-in-ubuntu-14-10-with-3rd-gen-lenovo-thinkpad-x1-carbon?rq=1 – Abel ANEIROS Jun 26 '15 at 12:11