Qubes release 4.1.1 (R4.1)
Brand: LENOVO
Model: 21C5CTO1WW
BIOS: R1YET39W (1.16 )
Xen: 4.14.5
Kernel: 6.1.5-1
RAM: 64302 Mb
CPU:
AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5875U with Radeon Graphics
Chipset:
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Renoir Root Complex [1022:1630]
VGA:
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Device [1002:15e7] (rev d1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Net:
Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0e)
MEDIATEK Corp. Device 0616
SCSI:
HVM: Active
I/O MMU: Active
HAP/SLAT: Yes
TPM: Device not found
Remapping: yes
Had to do some troubleshooting, but it is an awesome laptop and really fast with Qubes compared to my old one. Despite the lack of GUI acceleration, I can even play Youtube videos in 4K smoothly (old machine could not even do 720P smoothly.). I increased RAM to the max of 64 GB.
Installed R4.1.1 stable. For the installer to work I had to add: dom0_max_vcpus=1 dom0_vcpu_pin
Installation then completed without issues. When installation was done I also needed to add nomodeset to kernel parameters. Due Dom0 being limited to 1 vCPU, it is a little slow.
Then I updated Dom0 and rebooted. Now it is able to boot without commandline parameters and there is graphical boot, but it is very slow.
After that, I applied clocksource=tsc tsc=unstable hpetbroadcast=0 and performance is very smooth.
(Apparently clocksource=tsc is default now and no longer necessary.)
I did not try this from the beginning, so maybe it can already be used during installation instead of the other commandline parameters.
Ethernet:
Works out of the box
WiFi:
AMD RZ616(Apparently a rebranded MediaTek MT7922).
Works after upgrading to kernel-latest(currently 6.0.12-1) and setting that as the kernel for sys-net.
Keyboard special function keys are working:
Mute speakers, increase volume, decrease volme, mute mic, decrease brightness, increase brightness, external display button.
Trackpoint and touchpad:
Working
Suspend:
Working now.
Was not working at all with default Bios setting (Windows + Linux). After setting it to Linux S3, it wakes up from suspend but screen stays black. After upgrading to kernel-latest, mouse cursor appears but still unable to login. I read on github that Xen 4.14.5-15(currently in current-testing) fixed suspend on at least one AMD model as a side effect of another fix. I enabled current-testing repo(which also updated kernel-latest to 6.1.5-1). I can confirm that these updates indeed fix suspend 
sys-usb:
Working
HDMI out:
Working
Display out over USB-C:
Working (with usb-controllers assigned to sys-usb)
Note that this was tested with a USB-C to HDMI adapter, my external display does not support USB-C input.
(Display over USB-C to USB-C may also be undesirable due to increased attack surface).
Built-in camera and microphone:
Working.
Camera is assigned to sys-usb by default, so you need to assign it to the correct VM. Once sys-usb memory is increased to 1024 MB, it works fine.
Built-in audio:
Working
Fans:
Very little noise. There is a noticable spin-up noise though, but it is not loud enough to be annoying. Fans never reach high speed so far (note that this is probably due to lack of Turbo boost, see minor issues.)
Windows VM with QWT imported from Qubes on old laptop:
Working
AMD TSME (Transparent SME) Memory Encryption enabled it BIOS does not cause any issues.
Minor issues:
- C̶P̶U̶ f̶r̶e̶q̶u̶e̶n̶c̶y̶ i̶s̶ s̶t̶u̶c̶k̶ a̶t̶ t̶h̶e̶ d̶e̶f̶a̶u̶l̶t̶ 2̶0̶0̶0̶ M̶H̶z̶, b̶u̶t̶ t̶h̶i̶s̶ i̶s̶ a̶p̶p̶a̶r̶e̶n̶t̶l̶y̶ t̶h̶e̶ c̶a̶s̶e̶ f̶o̶r̶ a̶l̶l̶ r̶e̶c̶e̶n̶t̶ I̶n̶t̶e̶l̶ a̶n̶d̶ A̶M̶D̶ C̶P̶U̶’s̶. B̶u̶t̶ e̶v̶e̶n̶ w̶i̶t̶h̶o̶u̶t̶ t̶u̶r̶b̶o̶ b̶o̶o̶s̶t̶, p̶e̶r̶f̶o̶r̶m̶a̶n̶c̶e̶ i̶s̶ f̶a̶s̶t̶ a̶n̶d̶ 4̶K̶ y̶o̶u̶t̶u̶b̶e̶ v̶i̶d̶e̶o̶s̶ p̶l̶a̶y̶ s̶m̶o̶o̶t̶h̶, s̶o̶ n̶o̶t̶ a̶ b̶i̶g̶ d̶e̶a̶l̶. Apparently turboboost does work, but CPU frequency does not go lower than 1600MHz during idle: AMD CPU Frequency Scaling Broken · Issue #8008 · QubesOS/qubes-issues · GitHub
- The WiFi pci is delaying startup, but other than that works fine. Still investigating:
WiFi PCI issues on Thinkpad L14 AMD Gen 3
I switched to an Intel AX200 which does not have that issue. Still hoping for a fix for the original WiFi card though.
I’m hoping this laptop may end up in the community recommended list in the future. A laptop with 8 core CPU and a max of 64 GB RAM without mayor issues would be great there.
Suspend was fixed by a newer Xen package and WiFi by a newer kernel, so those will work out of the box once a new ISO is released with those versions.
Afaik the remaining blocking issues to end up on the recommended list will then be:
- Sleep mode needs to be set to Linux S3 in bios. (Is that a blocker for the recommended list?)
- Installer/booting does not work without commandline parameters. However a future Qubes ISO may set those by default or maybe it will be unnecessary in a future Qubes version (4.2?) to due better hardware support.
A bios update might fix this as well: Lenovo also fixed the need for TSC related parameters in other Thinkpad models (Ryzen 4000 CPU Performance Issues (Lockups) · Issue #6055 · QubesOS/qubes-issues · GitHub)
Qubes-HCL-LENOVO-21C5CTO1WW-20230114-152748.yml (851 Bytes)