The X Elite experience

I got a new X Elite laptop recently, specifically the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x. This is the obligatory blog post about running Linux on it.

Setting it up took a bit. Here are my tips:

• From the UEFI, remember to turn off Secure Boot and set the boot priority. It'll give you a weird error if you don't.
• Don't remove the Windows partition - you'll need it for firmware. Instead, turn off BitLocker so you can resize it.
• Don't use Fedora 42 - while GRUB will load, it'll black out and reboot once you pick any option.

I eventually got Ubuntu 25.04 running! But there were still some problems:

• Audio input/output doesn't work.
• Video input/output to external displays doesn't work.
• HDR and Night Light don't work.
• Some things aren't fully accelerated.

Right now, this is actually less feature support than my janky Surface Pro 7. Things are rapidly getting implemented though - follow along at bug 2084191.

Apr 20 2025 update

I built Jens Glathe's device tree, and external displays now work. The steps I took were something like

• Clone https://github.com/jglathe/linux_ms_dev_kit and switch to jg/ubuntu-qcom-x1e-6.15rc
• Make sure all necessary packages are installed
• Run cpp -nostdinc -I. -Iinclude -undef -x assembler-with-cpp arch/arm64/boot/dts/qcom/x1e80100-lenovo-yoga-slim7x.dts > usable.dts
• Run dtc -I dts -O dtb -o compiled.dtb usable.dts
• Back up your current device tree with sudo cp /boot/dtbs/6.14.0-15-generic/qcom/x1e80100-lenovo-yoga-slim7x.dtb /boot/dtbs/6.14.0-15-generic/qcom/x1e80100-lenovo-yoga-slim7x.dtb.bak, and copy in the new one with sudo cp ./compiled.dtb /boot/dtbs/6.14.0-15-generic/qcom/x1e80100-lenovo-yoga-slim7x.dtb
• Reboot and there you go

Oddly, I can't turn off the internal display without it crashing on me yet.