HCL - LENOVO Thinkpad P1
Eric Duncan
Sleep not working with BIOS 1.17 (known issue of all the latest Lenovo Thinkpad models since they removed S1 and S3 from BIOS). Log a support ticket with Lenovo.
Tested with 4.0.1 RTM and kernel-latest (4.19).
See this post for more debugging information: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/qubes-users/z51dkaEOiqc/wNhQ_86NGQAJ
Tip: don't set nomodeset for the Hybrid graphics with blacklisting nouveau - won't work completely. And setting nouveau.modeset=0 nouveau.blacklist=yes or modprobe.blacklist=nouveau will only get you 0.33 Frames Per Second refresh pain which makes the system unusable. Force it to discrete graphics (nvidia) and leave the nouveau for now.
Lots of screen flickering with nouveau, and lots of battery drain.
This model has 32 GB of ECC ram with the Xeon and p2000, used by the 4K screen.
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VM sys-usb exists
Qubes release 4.0 (R4.0)
Brand: LENOVO
Model: 20MDCTO1WW
BIOS: N2EET35W (1.17 )
Xen: 4.8.4
Kernel: 4.19.12-3
RAM: 32385 Mb
CPU:
Intel(R) Xeon(R) E-2176M CPU @ 2.70GHz
Chipset:
Intel Corporation Device [8086:3ec4] (rev 07)
VGA:
NVIDIA Corporation Device [10de:1cba] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Net:
Intel Corporation Device a370 (rev 10)
Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (7) I219-LM (rev 10)
SCSI:
HVM: Active
I/O MMU: Active
HAP/SLAT: Yes
TPM: Device not found
Remapping: yes
vadimkly...@gmail.com
Eric, any chance you could try updating the Bios to the recently released version 1.18 which I think should fix the graphics issues allow you to use the intel chip and try again with the latest version of Qubes 4.1 and report back? I literally have a Thinkpad P1 XEON w/32GB ECC and 2x2TB and the upgraded UHD display config that is pending for shipment and if the problems have not been resolved I would really like to know now like you I got this just for Qubes and if I cancel now can avoid $650 in restocking fees.
Eric Duncan
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> Eric, any chance you could try updating the Bios to the recently released version 1.18 which I think should fix the graphics issues allow you to use the intel chip and try again with the latest version of Qubes 4.1 and report back? I literally have a Thinkpad P1 XEON w/32GB ECC and 2x2TB and the upgraded UHD display config that is pending for shipment and if the problems have not been resolved I would really like to know now like you I got this just for Qubes and if I cancel now can avoid $650 in restocking fees.
Unfortunately I am traveling and am not able to test Qubes on this machine any time soon - at least well past their cancellation time-frame.
In short, all of Lenovo's recent machines for most of 2018 and 2019 all have the Sleep issue - that lenovo purposely got rid of the industry-wide S3 sleep mode in favor of Windows' new "Si03" crap that does nothing for us Linux people.
All, except the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th Gen - enough Linux gurus complained that Lenovo actually released a BIOS specifically for that machine that re-enabled S3.
I've logged a support ticket with Lenovo, and they said they aren't going to do it anytime soon. Please open a ticket, and complain as well.
As far as the "graphics" issue, I was running 1.17 BIOS at the time. 1.18 doesn't change anything for graphics, except an "edge case" that could brick the laptop. 1.18's main fix is the Sound Card - if you were to disable the Sound Card in 1.17 or earlier, you would brick you P1. 1.18 fixed that.
I have 1.18 now, and it doesn't make a difference with any other Linux distro. So I don't think it would matter with Qubes, sorry.
Regarding the kernel, Qubes 4.1 is only using 4.14. As you can see in my tests above, I tried Qubes with the latest 4.19 kernel. It's a no go, sorry, so 4.1 won't make any difference with it's old(er) 4.14 kernel.
With all that said... There is hope. It's a painful process to get there, but you can get a pretty decent system going with the P1 and Qubes (with enough compromises).
Follow the instructions I posted in the OP of this thread to get Qubes installed: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/qubes-users/z51dkaEOiqc/wNhQ_86NGQAJ
You can get Nvidia drivers installed in dom0, and that should really help out things. However, I don't think you'll have brightness control nor the ability to switch to Intel only iGPU (aka bbswitch) by using Xen.
As for Arch Linux, I installed Arch but it was a PITA to get anywhere near usable - kind of like Qubes.
Just before returning the laptop under the principal that Lenovo has killed Linux-abilities, I decided to try Pop!_OS by System76, which is Ubuntu with a skinjob + nvidia drivers built in. BINGO! Never in my life have I ever, not even once, found a distro that worked 100% out of the box. We're talking brightness control, iGPU Intel-only switching, and most of all - SUSPEND is working! How they got Suspend working, when no one else has posted the ACPI tables for the P1 to hack around the sleep mode yet, I am at a loss. I really hated going back to Ubuntu - but things are just too damn silky smooth with Pop!_OS. It's been a 100% dream, and the way Linux (Gnome) should be experienced for everyone. I'm getting 7-9 hours battery life every day out of the laptop with Intel only graphics. I've since installed Pop!_OS on my wife's iMac 2015, on my daughter's XPS laptop and on my monster gaming desktop (that can't normally run Linux!). Whatever they did to Pop is what Ubuntu and Gnome should pay them to submit back upstream.
Currently I try to follow basic Qubes principals with Pop, such as installing nothing - I use Snap and AppImage for everything (even created a few that didn't exist). I also use Docker for development of everything. So basically my OS is barebones with just Pop!_OS.
Anyhow... For now, I have a functional laptop while traveling and working. This fall I'll have more time to try again with Qubes. Or at least Xen-only (I run pure Xen on a few servers myself, isolating things like Qubes does).
Ps, I've also installed some NH1 thermal paste on the CPU and GPU heatsinks as the fans were getting annoying - doing nothing but just browsing the web. If on Nvidia graphics, wow they were almost always spinning. Installing the NH1 grease dropped temps down by about 20C and the fans hardly ever kick on with Nvidia graphics - Intel graphics, I don't think I've ever heard them since with normal usage.