Summary
In general Ubuntu support for ARM laptops is improving with each new release of the kernel. At the moment sound, camera, wifi and most other features work. However, twin displays with the dock, boot from dock and external HDMI are not yet supported. Power management is also sub-optimal.
| Model | T14s Gen 6 ARM | T14 Gen 6 AMD | ARM vs AMD |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weight | 1.23kg | 1.47kg | better |
| Dimensions | 312x220x20mm | 315x225x20mm | tie |
| Screen (diagonal) | 357 | 357 | tie |
| Ports | Left 2xUSBC, right 2xUSBA | Left 2xUSBC,USBA, right: RJ45,USBA, microSD | worse |
| Battery | 58Wh | 57Wh | better |
| Geekbench 6.4 | Single core 2347, Multi-core: 14312 | Single Core 2893, Multi-core: 12324 | tie |
| Speakers+microphone | works | works | tie |
| External headset | works | works | tie |
| Cameras (internal and external USB) | works | works | tie |
| Dock | partial (one screen only) | works | worse |
| Boot from dock | no | works | worse |
| LUKS encryption | works | works | tie |
| Firmware updater | no | works | worse |
| Hibernate/wake up | works | works | tie |
| Kernel upgradable | works | works | tie |
| wifi | works | works | tie |
| Hibernation for 1 hour | lost 4% | lost 1% | worse |
| SSD | M.2 2242 | M.2 2280 | Worse |
| HDMI | not detected | works | Worse |
For the tests I used two models of the Lenovo Thinkpad:
T14s Gen 6 Snapdragon Elite X
-
T14 Gen 6 AMD Ryzen 7 Pro AI
Operating systems
For laptop 1 I used Ubuntu 26.04
For laptop 2 I used Ubuntu 26.04
Kernels
For laptop 1 7.0.0-10
For laptop 2 7.0.0-10
Processor
Laptop 1: Snapdragon X Elite X1E78100 Qualcomm Oryon 3.417 GHz, 12 physical cores (no hyperthreading)
Laptop 2: AMD Ryzen 7 350 (8 cores with hyperthreading) 2 to 5 GHz, w/Radeon 860M x 16
Battery
Laptop 1: 58Wh.
Laptop 2: 57Wh.
When put into hibernation laptop 1 lost 4% of power per hour. Laptop 2 lost 1%. The difference may be down either to the default sleep mode not being “deep” or for deep sleep not working at all. I will investigate.
Installation
Installation of Ubuntu 26.04 was successful with all options on both machines.
Thunderbird
Installation was successful and worked the same on both machines, including calendars.
Speakers and microphone
Internal speakers and microphone work on the ARM machine from kernel 7.0.0-10 and onwards.
Function keys
Brightness and sound controls now work on both machines.
Cameras
Both the internal camera and external Logitech 720P camera worked fine on both laptops.
Firmware Updater
This now works on both ARM and AMD machines.
Upgrading the kernel
You can install mainline as per the instructions on the mainline git repo with either machine.
Wifi
This works as expected on both laptops since kernel 6.18.6.
External monitors
Tested with a twin UHD display via Thinkpad USB-C Dock Gen 2.
This worked fine on laptop 2.
On laptop 1, however, closing the lid did not assign the main screen to one of the external monitors.
The first UHD external monitor was recognised at full resolution. The second external UHD monitor was not recognised, but was mirrored from the first. It does not appear as Display 3 in Displays control panel. Only the laptop (1) and first external monitor (2) appear. If you close the laptop the video on the external monitor freezes.
The same behaviour was observed with twin FHD monitors.
Changing the primary monitor to the internal display or vice versa worked, but it did not register the change in the Displays settings panel, which always shows the external monitor as primary.
HDMI
This doesn't work on laptop 1 at all.
With dock
On laptop 1, boot from the dock led to a fuzzy grub menu. On selecting Ubuntu the screen went black and did not boot. On laptop 2 this works fine.
Upgradeable Storage
Laptop 2 takes standard M.2 2280 drives, of which there are plenty of models up to 4TB. Laptop 1, however, accepts only M.2 2242, a 42mm long drive which is harder to source. I found only one model that has 4TB capacity. Most are 512GB-1TB. The 2230 drives can be used in a 2242 slot with an adaptor but 2280 drives are simply too large.
