Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 10)

Hardware
PCI/USB ID
Working?
Video
8086:46a6
Yes
Wi-Fi
8086:51f0
Yes
Mobile broadband
8086:7560
2c7c:0127
1cf8:3502
Yes
Audio
8086:51c8
Yes
TouchPad
06cb:00fc
Yes
TrackPoint
06cb:00fc
Yes
Webcam
06cb:0052
Partial
Fingerprint reader
Yes
Bluetooth
Yes
NFC
Untested
Touchscreen
Yes
Warning
Do not buy this laptop (
says even Lenovo
) with MIPI camera (listed by Lenovo as 'Computer Vision camera') (an only option with 2.8k OLED screen but also possible with IPS screens) which does not have open source drivers and will not just work in the
coming few years
.
Audio
This laptop requires
Sound Open Firmware
in order for the soundcard to work.
Video
See
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen 9)#Video
Fingerprint reader
The fingerprint reader works out of the box using
fprintd
. See
Fprint
.
Camera
The Gen10 Carbon X1 can be configured with one of two webcam setups:
FHD 1080p camera - tested and works;
MIPI "Computer Vision" - does not work, see
this thread on the Lenovo Forums
.
Mobile broadband
The
Fibocom L860, Fibocom FM350-GL, and Quectel EM05-CE
WWAN chips are currently available for this laptop. The
Quectel EM05-CE
chip should be operable out of the box on Linux. Use of the
Fibocom L860
chip requires installing the external FCC unlocking tool, which is available with the
thinkpad-l860-gl-fcc-unlock-bin
AUR
package. Do note that the unlocking tool does not work in the US yet, however it has been promised that support for US sim cards will be available soon. FCC unlocking for the
Fibocom FM350-GL
is available for non-US customers
[1]
.
After installing
thinkpad-l860-gl-fcc-unlock-bin
AUR
, enable the
lenovo-cfgservice.service
. The package also includes a
modemmanager
hook that will allow ModemManager to unlock the modem when appropriate.
Some users report that the
Fibocom L860
LTE modem does not work correctly with its factory firmware version,
18601.5001.00.01.01.32_GC
. Firmware version can be checked by inspecting the output of
mmcli -m [modem index]
. When running the firmware version mentioned above, it is possible to connect to an LTE bearer but the exposed
wwan0
interface might not be able to get an IP address. Upgrading to the latest firmware,
18601.5001.00.01.17.09_GC
at the time of writing, fixes this issue. Unfortunately, this modem
cannot
be upgraded using using
fwupd
, so again at the time of writing, the only solution is to do so from a Windows installation using Windows Update.
Powersaving
This laptop works nearly out of the box with
tlp
; however, the WWAN chip currently has issues with runtime power management and will prevent booting if runtime-pm is enabled for the device. To exclude it, modify the tlp configuration like:
/etc/tlp.conf
RUNTIME_PM_DENYLIST="08:00.0"
Performance modes
Lenovo supports 'platform-profiles' on newer kernels which can rather dramatically improve performance by decreasing throttling, or greatly improve battery life and thermals by lowering the CPU's power limit. These modes can result in over a 100% increase or decrease in CPU power draw. 
The default mode is "balanced" however users can switch between these modes using the following keyboard shortcuts:
Fn+l
- Low-power mode
Fn+m
- Balanced mode (aka Medium)
Fn+h
- Performance mode (aka High)
These modes can also be selected automatically by using
tlp
and the
PLATFORM_PROFILE_ON_AC/BAT
configuration fields.
The currently active mode can be checked with the following command:
# cat /sys/firmware/acpi/platform_profile
Intel GPU power saving
The i915 kernel module is used for the Alderlake iGPU. This supports various power saving measures such as frame buffer compression, panel self refresh. Some of these may have been enabled by default internally within the driver, but can also be manually set using kernel command line arguments.
Frame Buffer Compression can be enabled by setting enable_fbc=1. This seems to work fine.
Panel Self Refresh can be enabled by setting enable_psr=1 or enable_psr=2. enable_psr=2 seems to work fine.
Display controller power management: enable_dc=4 . Seems to work fine.
Both settings tested on 1260p with Linux 6.7 kernel.
Firmware
UEFI firmware and other device firmware is available through the
Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS)
, and can be installed using
fwupd
. Updates to the UEFI firmware include updates to the Intel Management Engine, so they may fail altogether if IME is disabled on the UEFI settings. A workaround for this is to temporarily enable IME, upgrade the firmware with
fwupd
, and disable IME after that.
Secure boot works out of the box with custom keys from multiple tools, including
sbctl
.
Function keys
In the firmware configuration it is possible to swap the
Ctrl
and
Fn
keys.
Some of the function keys
have keycodes with values that are too high to use in X
, which truncates values past 248. In Wayland, these keys might be difficult to map but can be doable manually using the in your desktop environment by specifying the XF86 keysym by hand from the table below. For example, in Gnome you can use
dconf-editor
to modify entries in
/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/
and other settings locations.
Key
Visible?
1
Marked?
2
Effect
Fn+Esc
No
Yes
Toggles Fn lock
Fn+F1
Yes
Yes
XF86AudioMute
Fn+F2
Yes
Yes
XF86AudioLowerVolume
Fn+F3
Yes
Yes
XF86AudioRaiseVolume
Fn+F4
Yes
Yes
XF86AudioMicMute
Fn+F5
Yes
Yes
XF86MonBrightnessDown
Fn+F6
Yes
Yes
XF86MonBrightnessUp
Fn+F7
Yes
Yes
XF86Display
Fn+F8
Yes
Yes
XF86WLAN
Fn+F9
Wayland-only
Yes
XF86NotificationCenter
Fn+F10
Wayland-only
Yes
XF86PickupPhone
Fn+F11
Wayland-only
Yes
XF86HangupPhone
Fn+F12
Yes
Yes
XF86Favorites
Fn+PrtSc
Wayland-only
Yes
XF86SelectiveScreenshot
Fn+Space
Yes
Yes
XF86SelectiveScreenshot
Fn+4
Yes
No
XF86Sleep
Fn+Left
Yes
No
Home
Fn+Right
Yes
No
End
Fn+l
No
No
Switch to low power mode
Fn+m
No
No
Switch to balanced/medium power mode
Fn+h
No
No
Switch to performance/high power mode
The key is visible to
xev
and similar tools.
Wayland-only
indicates the code can only be seen from a Wayland session.
The physical key has a symbol on it, which describes its function.
Accessibility
This laptop features a UEFI interface that is driven with a mouse or touchscreen; however, this interface can be disabled in favor of a traditional keyboard interface which is more accessible to use. Blind users might need to request help from a sighted person in order to make this change initially, but once changed the interface is far more easily navigable.
The boot device can be changed out of the box without needing to access the UEFI menu during boot by hitting F12, though the menu is initially on a 10 second timer so it might be necessary to input an UP or DOWN after the menu loads if the user is using a screen reader or something else which might take time in order to provide the user feedback on which option to select.