Installing Fedora 24 on a ThinkPad X1 Yoga

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ATTENTION!
This is based on a ALPHA version of Fedora with updates up to April 27 2016, later versions may behave different!
NOTE!
This is based on the x86-64 workstation version of Fedora 24 with the default GNOME desktop. Your experience with a different edition may be different.
Help needed
Not all models of this ThinkPad are equal, you may have a different WiFi adapter or display, or some options I did not have. If you tested them, please add their status down below.

New in this release

New in this Fedora release, with regards to this model ThinkPad is the following;

  • Better support for Multi-monitor HiDPI, when using the Wayland option

Regressions;

  • ...

Success Chart - Out of the box experience

Item Working Notes
Installation Local CD/DVD install unknown did not test
Network Installation unknown did not test
USB Installation yes did not test, but should required passing the boot parameter intel_pstate=disable
Display - Intel HD Graphics Laptop Screen yes Requires a newer kernel to detect HiDPI display
VGA unknown I do not have the VGA OneLink+ dongle
Displayport unknown did not test
HDMI yes
Power Management Software Suspend (hibernate) unknown
Suspend to Memory (ACPI sleep) yes
Audio yes
Wireless WiFi - Intel 8260 AC yes
WiFi - Intel 18260 AC + WiGig unknown
Bluetooth 4.1 yes
WWAN - Sierra Wireless EM7455 unknown
WWAN - Huawei 4G unknown did not test, but is detected
Input Keyboard yes
TrackPoint yes
TouchPad yes
Extra keys mostly see ThinkPad Extra keys section below
Fingerprint reader no does not work
Pen Pro (Wacom) yes
Touch screen yes
Automatic screen rotation no While the capability seems to be detected, it does not actually rotate
Ports Intel Ethernet yes via OneLink+ dongle
MicroSD reader yes
USB yes
TPM unknown did not test, but tpm kernel modules are being loaded
Docking unknown Have not received the OneLink+ dock yet

Tested and Verified on Fedora 24

Information in this section has been tested and verified using Fedora 24.

BIOS

In the BIOS (F1 to enter during boot), be sure to disable secure boot.

Security > Secure Boot > Secure Boot = Disabled

Also, if your planning to run any kind of virtual machines, make sure you enable the CPU virtualization support.

Security > Virtualization > Intel (R) Virtualization Technology = Enabled

And while your in the BIOS setup you may also want to immediately change the default Function key behaviour. On this ThinkPad by default the function keys will not work as one would expect. When pressing F1 you do not get F1, but you get Mute. To get F1 you need to press Fn-F1 or you first need to enable the FnLk (Fn-ESC). To reverse this behaviour back to how to should be, change the setting in the BIOS.

Config > Keyboard/Mouse > F1-F12 as Primary Function = Enabled

Installation

By default, the installation will hang immediately after the bootloader with a black screen. It is necessary to edit the boot options and add "intel_pstate=disable" to the end of the line of options.

After this, installation is straight forward; you can follow the generic Fedora install instructions.

Configuration

Kernel

As root, edit /etc/default/grub and adding the option intel_pstate=disable which will prevent a hang at boot. After adding this, update the grub configs with the following (assuming default uEFI setup);

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg

There is a work around for this BIOS bug in the 4.6 kernel, which is not available for Fedora 24 at this point.

X Server - Intel HD Graphics

Works out of the box, but HiDPI is not detected until you install a more recent kernel.

In addition, a HiDPI display has a whole lot of issues. Most of them are covered here; ArchLinux HiDPI.

Basically with the default kernel, everything is tiny but with a later kernel everything is quite large as it tries to scale everything 2x. In fact a bit too large to my liking. On the archlinux website there are some hints and tips on how to scale things down a bit again, but it is really a hack and far from ideal.

Also having a HiDPI primary display causes everything on external non-HiDPI displays to appear huge as they will receive the same scaling factor. This is a limitation of the X11 windowing system. The long term solution would be to switch to a Wayland desktop which is able to handle multiple displays with various DPI settings.

ThinkPad Extra keys

ThinkPad keys are handled by a mixture of the thinkpad_acpi, acpi button, acpi dock and acpi video drivers.

Key Function Handled by Event Works Notes
FnESC FnLk unknown yes Locks Fn key state
FnF1 Mute yes yes
FnF2 Volume - yes yes
FnF3 Volume + yes yes
FnF4 Mic Mute yes yes
FnF5 brightness down yes yes
FnF6 brightness up yes yes
FnF7 presentation mode unknown yes Cycles through External Only, mirror and dual display
FnF8 Wireless Kill yes yes No OSD, but kills wireless
FnF9 Settings yes yes Opens Gnome settings panel
FnF10 Find yes yes Opens Gnome find
FnF11 ? unknown unknown Does not seem to do anything
FnF12 ? yes yes Opens Gnome Places
FnSpace keyboard light - unknown yes no OSD.
Power Power button acpi button yes yes Need to press button for ~1 second to trigger a Suspend event.
Volume keys on side Volume yes yes
Lid Lid button acpi button yes yes Triggers suspend event