Add Z13 post

major · Jan 14, 2024 · 377337b · 377337b
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+---
+author: Major Hayden
+date: '2024-01-14'
+summary: |
+  Now that AMD's Zen 4 CPUs landed in lots of laptops, I picked up a ThinkPad Z13 G2
+  with an AMD Ryzen CPU. Did I put Linux on it? Of course I did. 🐧
+tags: 
+  - amd
+  - fedora
+  - laptop
+  - linux
+  - sway
+  - thinkpad
+title: Linux on the AMD ThinkPad Z13 G2
+coverAlt: A brown highland cow with the sun behind it
+coverCaption: |
+  [Dylan Leagh](https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-yak-on-green-grass-field-during-daytime-UG3L8WAQLBs)
+  via Unsplash
+---
+
+AMD's new [Zen 4 processors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_4) started rolling out in 2022 and I've been watching for the mobile CPUs to reach laptops.
+I like where AMD is going with these chips and how they provide lots of CPU power without eating up the battery.
+
+I recently ordered a [ThinkPad Z13 Gen 2](https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpadz/thinkpad-z13-gen-2-(13-inch-amd)/len101t0073) with an AMD Ryzen 7.
+As you might expect, I loaded it up with Fedora Linux and set out to ensure that everything works.
+
+This post includes all of the configurations and changes I added along the way.
+
+# Power management
+
+I removed the power profiles daemon that comes with Fedora by default. and replaced it with [tlp](https://linrunner.de/tlp/index.html).
+This is a great package for ThinkPad laptops as it takes care of most of the power management configuration for you with sane defaults.
+It also offers an easy to read configuration file where you can make adjustments.
+
+The defaults seem to be working well so far, but my only complaint is that the power management for `amdgpu` seems to be _really aggressive_.
+Graphics performance on battery power is _okay_, but I'm told this improves in kernel 6.7.
+I'm on 6.6.11 in Fedora 39 right now.
+
+I'll wait to see if this new kernel makes any improvements.
+
+# Touchpad
+
+The ELAN touchpad in the Z13 is a bit different.
+It's a *haptic* touchpad.
+It doesn't push down with a click like the other thinkpads.
+It provides haptic feedback, much like a mobile phone does when you tap on the screen.
+(I usually turn this off on my phone, but it feels good on the laptop.)
+
+The touchpad works right out of the box without any additional configuration.
+I made a basic Sway configuration stanza to get it configured with my preferences:
+
+```ini
+# ThinkPad Z13 Gen 2 AMD Touchpad
+input "11311:40:SNSL0028:00_2C2F:0028_Touchpad" {
+  drag disabled
+  tap enabled
+  dwt enabled
+  natural_scroll disabled
+}
+```
+
+The configuration above enables tap to click and dragging with taps.
+I like the old school scrolling style and I've disabled the natural scroll.
+
+You can always get a list of your input devices in Sway with `swaymsg`:
+
+```console
+swaymsg -t get_inputs
+```
+
+# Display
+
+The display worked right out of the box but the UI elements were scaled up far too large for me.
+I typically value screen real estate over all other aspects, but my usual default of scaling to 1.0 made the UI far too small.
+
+I set my output scaling to 1.2:
+
+```ini
+# Disable HiDPI
+output * scale 1.2
+```
+
+I also enabled the [RPM Fusion repos](https://rpmfusion.org/Howto/Multimedia) to get the freeworld AMD Mesa drivers:
+
+```console
+sudo dnf install \
+    https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm \
+    https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
+sudo dnf swap mesa-va-drivers mesa-va-drivers-freeworld
+sudo dnf swap mesa-vdpau-drivers mesa-vdpau-drivers-freeworld
+```
+
+# Audio
+
+Sound worked right out of the box, but I found that the loudness preset from [easyeffects](https://github.com/wwmm/easyeffects) made the speakers sound a little bit better:
+
+```console
+sudo dnf install easyeffects
+```
+
+# Everything else
+
+Everything else just worked!
+
+I'm really pleased with the performance and the battery life so far.
+My only complaint is that the OLED screen can be a battery hog at times.
+
+For more details, check out the [Arch Linux wiki page for the Z13](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Lenovo_ThinkPad_Z13).
+They documented lots of the function keys if you want to create keyboard shortcuts and they link to some downloadable monitor profiles.
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