Lenovo Carbon X1 12th Gen & Debian Linux: The Nostalgia Experience

This blog post is about installing Debian on the latest Lenovo Carbon X1 — the 12th gen. tl;dr: I wouldn’t really recommend the experience… but the result is the best laptop I’ve had.

OK, here’s my tale of woe and success:

My old Lenovo Carbon X1 laptop’s Trackpoint device went wonky — it would start sheering off on its own for a few seconds. I tried Googling whether there was any way to fix this, but just found a whole lot of pages saying “well, that’s no problem! it stops after a few seconds!”

People, man. People are impossible.

Lenovo has an excellent parts policy and repair manuals out there, but replacing the Trackpoint device is a 45 point procedure, requiring me to disassemble the laptop completely. So I bought a new one.

As you can see, they’re very similar. The main keyboard difference is that there’s now a fingerprint thing where the right control key was, but I didn’t use the right control key anyway, so it makes no difference to me. Oh, and they flipped the Fn/Left Control keys once again.

(I should send the old one in to be fixed, even though it’s out of warranty, I guess…)

The old one was running Ubuntu with X. I’m so fed up with Ubuntu: The “snap” thing, and the way they keep some updates to a paid channel. So I wanted the new laptop to use Debian, and I had to make the change to Wayland at some point, so why not now?

Reader, it was A Whole Thing.

It’s been a very nostalgic experience, because the last time I had to dick around this much to get Linux to work was back in the 90s.

Even with the newest “testing” Debian distribution, it didn’t have new enough firmware for the wifi to work, so I installed Debian using an ethernet dongle. How retro is that?

Then, after Linux came up kinda well, I copied newer firmware from the official distribution:

cd /usr/src/
git clone https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git
cp linux-firmware/intel/ibt-0180-0041.* /usr/lib/firmware/intel/
cp linux-firmware/i915/mtl_guc_70.bin /usr/lib/firmware/i915/
cp linux-firmware/intel/ibt-0180-0041.* /usr/lib/firmware/intel/

But that’s not enough — they also need to be in the initramfs? So:

cp /usr/src/linux-firmware/i915/mtl_* /lib/firmware/i915/
update-initramfs -u

I don’t understand why Debian are so reticent about including newer firmware files in “testing”. Newer devices need new firmware, and older devices will continue to load older firmware, so it should be pretty safe-ish. (I’m guessing wifi would have worked out of the box with Ubuntu, since they (wisely) include newer firmware.)

But with that, the laptop is basically usable, but lots of details remain to get everything to work.

The laptop has a 5G modem installed:

08:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Quectel Wireless Solutions Co., Ltd. Device 1007

This modem (which is really called Quectel RM520N-GL 5G Sub6, apparently) is well supported in Linux 6.9, but it needs to be FCC unlocked, because Lenovo locks them.

So you need this, but you don’t need all of that. But you apparently need ModemManager 1.23, which isn’t in Debian “testing”, so you need to get it from here. And also libmbin.

apt build-dep modemmanager libmbib

to get the requirements.

bash /usr/share/ModemManager/fcc-unlock.available.d/1eac\:1001 foo `ls /sys/class/wwan/`

will unlock, but:

mbimcli --device-open-proxy --device=/dev/wwan0mbim0 --quectel-query-radio-state

will talk about not being able to do anything about the modem, because it’s eSIM. So you need to switch to the physical sim slot:

mmcli -m 0 --set-primary-sim-slot=0

Then reboot, and things work. I.e., just go to Settings and switch it on:

*phew*

I’ve used the 5G on a trip now, and it seems to be rock solid. I’ve had other laptop with built-in WWAN, and it’s generally kinda worked… but often required a bit of hand-holding, and is often not completely stable. But this chipset seems to be A-OK.

The audio system worked fine out of the box… until Debian updated the firmware or something, and then the internal speaker stopped working. I know! It’s such a cliché joke at this point — whenever somebody mentions Linux, they go “and does the audio work, then? *snigger*”, and I haven’t had a problem with Linux audio in years, so my reaction has been “*pout* So unfair! *stamps foot*”.

But to get the laptop speaker working again, I needed the following in /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet snd_intel_dspcfg.dsp_driver=1"

And then update-grub2.

For the Fn/Ctrl thing, I’ve gotten used to having the Ctrl where it was — but fortunately that could be switched around in the BIOS.

And then, of course, all the pain involved with Wayland.

But the good news is… the Lenovo Carbon X1 12th Gen is really good! It’s fast, and it has way better battery life than I’ve ever experienced on a Linux laptop. Which is a huge difference from my previous laptop, which only lasted like three hours. So the Linux/Intel people have really gotten their shit together and made huge strides in this area.

Speaking of power modes… What do you think these three options mean, anyway? It’s impossible to guess. But after looking at the source code and googling a lot, these three options seem to mean:

  • Performance: Be fast, but use a lot of power.
  • Power Saver: Be slow, but use next to no power.
  • Balanced: Use Performance when plugged in, and Power Saver when unplugged.

That is, there is no Balanced mode really.

And dude, Power Saver mode is dog slow. It ramps up when you’re doing something, but it’s so slow that even typing in Emacs will have a noticeable lag. Balanced mode is the defaults, and makes the laptop a sad experience when unplugged, basically. Before I realised this, I thought perhaps that Wayland was the culprit or something, but was extremely impressed by the 18 hours uptime I was getting. So now I’ve just changed it to flip to Performance when I open the lid, and down to Power Saver when I close the lid.

With my usage patterns (which involve using the laptop often throughout the day, but mixed with doing other stuff in betwee), I basically only have to charge it once per day. I’ve thrown out most of the chargers I had sprinkled around my apt! It makes a huge change in how I feel about the laptop — instead of there being a constant low level “perhaps I should charge it soon” loop going in my head, there’s just this chill thing going on now.

And if I forget to plug the laptop in before going to bed, that’s fine, because when I’m not using the laptop, it only seems to gently sip battery power. (I’ve don’t let the laptop go to “suspend” automatically when not in use, because I’ve got several long-running network connections going all the time, and reconnecting would be a bother.)

And otherwise… everything just works? Suspend (which I never use anyway, because it’s not needed) works fine, audio works fine (ahem), the screen is pretty good (it’s OLED with an anti glare thing — I’d prefer FULL GLARE to get max contrast, but it’s fine). And it’s 1.1kg.

I’d go so far as to say that this is my favourite laptop ever. Despite all the 90s-like shenanigans to get things working. And presumably the next Debian release will have proper support for all of this stuff, so people won’t have to go through all of… this.

(Which is less stuff than I thought now that I’m typing it out, but it sure took me a long time to figure out all these bits and pieces.)

Anyway.

Year Of Linux On The Laptop!

Comics Daze

It’s a lovely day today for once, and I should probably be out frolicking with woodland creatures, but eh. That sounds exhausting! So comics it is. And today’s music is all Ray Aggs’ bands: Trash Kit, Shopping and Sacred Paws. I was a latecomer to their music — I discovered them in like 2021, and snapped up all their albums and was happy… but then it turns out that they haven’t made any new albums since 2020! Won’t I ever get to see them live? *pout*

Trash Kit: Trash Kit

11:25: Causeway #18-21 by CF

CF had printer problems or something, so I got all four of these in one fell swoop.

The Internet is for cats.

The first Causeways issues were more narrative, but recently they’ve been more sketchbook like. But this seems to hint at a story again, although I’m not sure what it is… probably not.

Anyway, class stuff. And I like the colourful blotches.

Trash Kit: Teenagers

11:31: Petar & Liza by Miroslav Sekulic-Struja (Fantagraphics)

This book is a bit frustrating.

There’s bits that are brilliant, but it doesn’t quite come together.

Trash Kit: Woolf

But it’s pretty good. I love these tableaux. And the book’s ending is successful.

Shopping: Consumer Complaints

12:29: Jaywalk #4 edited by Austin English & Floyd Tangeman (Domino Books)

It’s another great issue of Jaywalk — it’s mostly slightly longer pieces this time (but perhaps it was like that last time, too)?

Some of the pieces get somewhat abstract.

But with huge emotional impact.

Trash Kit: Confidence

12:45: The Furry Trap by Josh Simmons (The Mansion Press)

I may have read this before? It’s a collection of horror pieces from 2004-2011, but this is a new edition? Did Fantagraphics publish a version of this? Goodreads says yes.

The reviews aren’t very… er… enthusiastic.

This is drawn in an impressive range of styles… and it’s all so much more horrid than you can imagine. I hope.

Simmons is really successful at what he’s doing, I guess — which is making people want to throw up. I’ll let Goodreads speak again:

Shopping: Why Choose

13:11: All My Bicycles by Powerpaola (Fantagraphics)

This is autiobio told through the lens of her bikes.

It’s really good — it’s sort of ruminative and odd, but it’s tied together by constantly returning to the bikes. It feels like a very free, natural and unforced way of structuring these glimpses of friendships gained and lost. It’s got a great flow.

Sacred Paws: Six Songs

13:31: Zoo no. 4 by Anand

This is in “album” size, but it has smaller pages at the start and end. Nice.

These stories are funny and sometimes touching. Some are almost straight-up jokes and others are more short-story like. It’s pretty great.

Sacred Paws: Strike A Match

13:59: Passage by Tessa Brunton (Sparkplug Books)

Wow, this is great. Love the artwork and layouts. This is from 2011, but I guess I missed it the first time around.

And it’s funny and extremely poignant.

Shopping: The Official Body

14:10: My Life Among Humans by Jed McGowan (Oni Press)

This is pretty odd — I mean the storytelling. Having a narrator chat this much is unusual these days.

But I think it works pretty well? It’s a sort of horror book, really, but also a comedy of sorts.

14:32: Puncentration Camp by Susan Kaplan

Wow.

There’s narrative content going on here, but it’s pretty associative.

It’s really impressive (and expressive). Cool books.

Trash Kit: Horizon

14:45: O’boy by Ida Larmo (Strand forlag)

This starts off as if it’s going to be a faux diary thing…

… but then abandons that immediately. Very odd, but I guess the conceit allowed them to do the fun cover design with a diary-like lock thing.

Hey! The sun went away, so I can sit on the balcony, which I’ve barely been able to do this year, because it’s been a cold and crappy summer. The few days it’s been warm, it’s been so windy that I couldn’t sit out here anyway.

(Note clever technical solution to getting sound on the balcony: Rotating a speaker.)

I really enjoyed this book. It’s one of those rare books about childhood that’s not about trauma or horrible things, but about the fun stuff about being 11. Sure, she goes through all the normal embarrassing things you do when you’re starting puberty, and It’s The Worst Every etc, but it’s all handled with an extremely light touch. But I’m not sure how much an 11-year-old now would relate to it, because it’s an extremely period piece — everything that happens is based on the author’s real diaries from about 1992, and everything feels 100% true. That’s… 32 years ago?

I think it’s a wonderful book, though.

Shopping: All Or Nothing

15:43: The Russian Detective by Carol Adlam (Penguin Random House)

This is a very ambitious book — it’s told in a variety of styles…

… and involves people with multiple identities, and mysteries, and dreams and ghosts and stuff.

It’s entertaining, but I’m not sure the payoff is commensurate with the effort demanded of the reader. That is, we’re being pleasantly confused throughout the book, but then the ending is just what we’ve assumed all along…

Sacred Paws: Run Around The Sun

16:27: Kijara 4 by Tatiana Goldberg (Comic Factory)

Well… This isn’t my kind of thing, but it’s the fourth album in a series, so it sounds like others enjoy it? For instance, the scene above is a stock “people bitching to each other while training” scene, with the Standard Fake Drama thing going on. But it’s a cliché because people like reading that scene. Or watching it on TV.

I have more of a problem with just the basic mechanics of reading these pages. On the left-hand page, can you tell where the characters are in relation to each other? In the third panel the door is missing, so are we doing a 180° camera movement, which would explain where they are in relation to each other — and the blue and yellow guy turned around, too? But then in the fourth panel the door is back, so we didn’t do an 180°, but both the red haired one and the blue one changed places? And then again in the sixth panel?

And it’s the same on the right-hand page — who’s to the left of who, and are they in front or behind the yellow tape?

If I’d enjoyed the story, I’m sure these things wouldn’t have annoyed me as much, but…

R. Aggs: Tape 1

16:55: Illusions 1 by Floyd Tangeman

I love this.

It’s a collection of religious drawings, it says.

17:01: Guff #2

Errr… I’m not sure who made this?

Possibly Kai Eliott Reynolds?

Anyway, it’s good stuff. It’s a bit on the random side, but all the pieces are engaging. And there’s one that’s pretty funny.

17:10: Wild Combination by CJ Reay

This is a series of two-page spreads illustrating a snippet of Arthur Russell lyrics.

I like it.

Oops! I ran out of Ray Aggs albums… so I’ll switch to Talking Heads.

Talking Heads: 77 (Sire)

17:16: Bad Omen by Noah Blake

Interesting graphics…

… but it’s so brief that it’s over almost before it began.

17:23: Tom’s Bar by Berardi & Milazzo (Epicenter Comics)

The artwork here is really strong. This is Italian, I guess?

However, the stories are pretty standard Italian crime things with twist endings, so it’s not all that inspiring. The art almost makes up for it, though.

The translation doesn’t help — it’s pretty non-idiomatic, and things are frequently quite abstract. You’re not quite sure what they’re trying to say half of the time. I guess Epicenter Books is Croatian or something?

17:43: The Fortune of the Winczlavs 3 by Van Hamme & Berthet (Cinebook)

Why did I get this, then? I vaguely remember the previous album in the series being pretty bad…

Ah, yeah, it’s the story of Largo Winch’s ancestors… and I’ve barely read that series.

Yada yada yada. OK, I still have zero interest in this, so I’m ditching it.

Talking Heads: More Songs About Buildings and Food

17:52: World War 3 Illustrated #40

Aah! 2008! The last year anybody was optimistic about anything.

There’s good things in here, but it’s not a memorable issue. Not many people adhere to the theme — “What We Want” — but perhaps people were already getting disillusioned after a couple months of Obama.

Talking Heads: Fear of Music

But it’s fine.

18:26: The End

But I think I’m calling it a day, because it’s getting colder out here on the balcony…

Pure Evil

Why you do this!

*sigh*

I guess there may be some chemichals that could help here? But gaffa tape to the rescue — by dabbing the offending area a couple thousand times with tape, you can eventually lift all the tape parts. This only works if the surface can take some manhandling, but this tea kettle is pretty sturdy. Life hack!

Behold! Success! It only took like ten minutes! Thanks, Le Creuset. One star.

Anyway, I’ve always used electric kettles — they’re so much faster for boiling water than a stove with conventional burner plates. Some years back I got an induction top, but it never occurred to me that that meant that I could get rid of the electric kettle until I watched this:

Why don't Americans use electric kettles?

Earlier today I repeated the experiment: Which would be faster, the electric kettle or the induction top? The induction top handily beat out the kettle, even though the electric kettle is 2.4kW.

So I ran out and bought that green thing up there. Which is pure evil, as you can see! But it brings the water to a boil about 30% faster than my electric kettle. (I timed.) Which… sounds totally reasonable, since the induction top is 3.7kW, I think. *does math* Yes indeed.

Of course, the electric kettle is convenient in other ways — it turns itself off by itself, and it has a thermometer, which is important when I need the water to cool down to exactly 80C before using on green tea, but… More counter space is more counter space.