Status of Ubuntu support for Lenovo ThinkPad X13s

Desktop
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Phew, finally able to report more stuff. It always said “you already wrote 3 replies” w/o even telling me what I am supposed to do now, in order to actually write more here. Really weird forum, luckily it seems to randomly work again. Anyway…

Re Bluetooth problems:
It seems a2dp SBC actually works fine, ie no distortion, just it still has very low reception range.
The higher quality a2dp SBC-XQ is actually the one that has all the static/crackle problems, not the normal SBC.

As for missing Netflix (widevine), a workaround I’m using is to just use OBS on my x86-64 Linux PC to capture the Netflix-Chromium window (xcomposite) via recording (NOT streaming!), and set OBS “recording” config to: custom ffmpeg → url → udp://theX13sIP:8081
and then run mpv --no-cache udp://@0.0.0.0:8081 on the X13s.
Added an x11vnc --id (the id reported by wmctrl -l) to it to be able to control the netflix window.
Best workaround that seems possible atm? Only drawback is the netflix browser window on the x86 machine has to be in the foreground, maybe due to X11 limitations? dunno. Pretty annoyingly you cannot even issue xset dpms force off to shutdown all monitors meanwhile, as that will interrupt the video stream too, instead you have to turn off all connected monitors manually via their hardware buttons -_-.

Also I noticed that the Spkr left/right settings since some update ceased to exist in the alsamixer. Instead, WSA_RX0 Digital and WSA_RX1 Digital seem like they help?

However, I have a big problem now:
In the alsamixer I was playing around with the settings to find out which other controls are now responsible for volume now that the Spkr-ones are gone, and when I flipped some option back and forth, suddenly all sound output on speakers would cease - forever! Even though I flipped it back. Even though I rebooted! I can only get sound via bluetooth now, what the hell guys?
I tried alsactl init, to no avail.
So please fix it or let me know how I can fix it, this is not cool, lol. I’ve never seen anything like this on any Linux so far.

Last but not least:
Another problem still existing: Discord!
Armcord works, but cannot utilize global hotkeys, so the only way “discord” currently works on X13s is to either use open mic with voice level activation, or keep the Armcord window focused while talking… (this issue applies to all variants of discord-like apps on x13s, including website-discord)

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The Oracular desktop image now supports the X13s. Check the Install Oracular section in the top post (and be sure to tick that box…).

2 Likes
76

Nice. But is it needed to use the installer image ie set up everything from scratch, or can you do a dist-upgrade?
Can you install the new image “over” this existing 24.04 system or does that not work?

Edit: I guess not (yet)?:

$ sudo do-release-upgrade
Checking for a new Ubuntu release
No new release found.

(if that is how you supposedly upgrade the version…)

PS: Mouse cursor just randomly turned invisible again. I found out it’s a known issue that happens when you put an app into fullscreen sometimes and apparently a bug in wayland.
So do NOT press F11 guys.

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You will need to pass -d to do-release-upgrade since oracular is still in development, see https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/how-to-upgrade-your-release

Obligatory warning:

Upgrading to a development release of Ubuntu is available using the -d flag. However, using the development release (or the -d flag) is not recommended for production environments

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This is a very exciting development. I put Oracular Oriole on a usb-c thumb drive and installed it on my x13s. I’m curious though, has anyone successfully upgraded to the 6.11 kernel?

Based on this, it seems like it should be available: Introducing Kernel 6.11 for the 24.10 Oracular Oriole Release - #5 by libredood

There even seem to be some x13s related tweaks to it: Bug #2078929 “Pull in latest X13s commits” : Bugs : linux package : Ubuntu

But when I upgraded to the 6.11 kernel using ‘sudo apt install linux-image-generic/oracular-proposed’ Ubuntu wouldn’t boot. Luckily I was able to go to the “advanced” tab in grub and select to boot from the 6.8 kernel and get Ubuntu to boot again.

Just curious what I am missing here, though, to get my machine to boot with the 6.11 kernel.

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There seems to be some sort of a kernel race condition at boot that sometimes results in a boot failure. What makes it better is reducing the size of the initrd. Try this:

  1. Change the line MODULES=most to MODULES=dep in /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf
  2. Rebuild the initrd: update-initramfs -c -k 6.11.0-6-generic
  3. Reboot into kernel 6.11.0-6-generic
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That worked! Thanks!

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Hi @juergh. Were you able to get preliminary camera support working on the 6.11 kernel? I haven’t been able to yet.

On the flip side, I’m excited to have been able to see this output…

> glxinfo | grep "direct rendering"
direct rendering: Yes

Does this mean I already have the required unofficial/unreleased firmware blob you mentioned?

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glxinfo returns information about 2D and 3D graphics rendering capabilities (OpenGL API and such). That’s different from the Venus accelerator which offloads video encoding/decoding to the hardware through the v4l2 API.

Regarding glx, what you’re actually interested in is Hardware Acceleration:

$ glxinfo | grep Accel
    Accelerated: yes
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Regarding camera:

$ cam -l
[0:29:14.048865074] [3264]  INFO Camera camera_manager.cpp:313 libcamera v0.3.1
[0:29:14.080632304] [3269]  WARN CameraSensor camera_sensor.cpp:501 'ov5675 24-0010': Rotation control not available, default to 0 degrees
[0:29:14.083643197] [3269] ERROR IPAProxy ipa_proxy.cpp:149 Configuration file 'ov5675.yaml' not found for IPA module 'simple'
Available cameras:
1: Internal front camera (/base/soc@0/cci@ac4c000/i2c-bus@1/camera@10)

qcam should give you something. You might have to fiddle with device permissions or run it as root. The output is not yet very pretty but it’s at least something…

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Cam is only there if you hack in the latest kernel, right? on my stock one:

$ cam -l
[0:02:28.346847499] [4508] WARN IPAManager ipa_manager.cpp:154 No IPA found in ‘/usr/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libcamera’
[0:02:28.346906385] [4508] INFO Camera camera_manager.cpp:284 libcamera v0.2.0
Available cameras:

^ nothing. This is with latest apt upgrade+update.
So even if I installed 24.10, I wouldn’t have camera, as it doesn’t use the latest kernel?

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Yeah, you need 6.11 from oracular-proposed.

$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu-proposed.sources 
Types: deb
URIs: http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/
Suites: oracular-proposed
Components: main restricted universe multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

$ cat /etc/apt/preferences.d/oracular-proposed 
Package: linux*
Pin: release a=oracular-proposed
Pin-Priority: 510
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86

I typed in ‘sudo qcam’ and it worked! Thanks!

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Thanks for correcting me here! I did get ‘Accelerated: yes’ when I typed that in.

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Is this race condition at boot fixed in 6.11.0-7-generic, which I just upgraded to?

If so, should I change the line MODULES=dep back to MODULES=most?

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Is this race condition at boot fixed in 6.11.0-7-generic, which I just upgraded to?

No, still looking but have been side-tracked.

1 Like
90

is it possible to install 24.10 “over” existing 24.04 installation, by booting from 24.10 stick and selecting install?
For keeping /home as it is, just to renew the actual OS?

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is it possible to install 24.10 “over” existing 24.04 installation, by booting from 24.10 stick and selecting install?
For keeping /home as it is, just to renew the actual OS?

This only works if /home is on a separate partition. You should use do-release-upgrade instead:

$ sudo do-release-upgrade -d
Checking for a new Ubuntu release
There is no development version of an LTS available.
To upgrade to the latest non-LTS development release 
set Prompt=normal in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades.
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The problem is that since I changed settings back and forth in alsamixer once I have no audio over speakers anymore, only bluetooth works.
Even though I tried to revert and reset alsa settings it didn’t help.
So it feel this system is just broken and I don’t want to dist-upgrade just to carry over the brokeness. I feel this system might carry over old problems that are resolved in new 24.10 if I just did a dist-upgrade, leaving me wth a “bad” 24.10 system then.

So, considering how many issues 24.04 had is it really recommended to do dist-upgrade, will this solve old problems? Or is it a dangerous path that could potentially corrupt your new 24.10 installation by carrying over problems from the 24.04 config files and installation?

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I had a similar problem with sound but booted into windows and everything went back to normal. Because fwupdmgr is currently not supported for x13s it is recommended to keep a small windows partition for firmware updates. Anyway fwupmgr said I had a new firmware update and I tried to install it but fwupmgr did not work.

Currently rocking oracular and kernel 6.11 and system is running really good. Sound is better but still not loud and bluetooth works better (less cutting out). Having a problem with wifi not starting after suspend but I had the same problem on a intel laptop. I am on the cutting edge but not bleeding yet. :grinning: