Lenovo Yoga 720 with linux
 

Hi guys, I just ordered a new lenovo yoga 720 in hopes of dual booting with elementary OS. Can anybody verify that linux runs on the 720? I heard that the touchpad didn’t work at first but it sounds like that issue was fixed with the new kernel or hardware enablement stack. I am just wondering if anybody has one that works or can testify that it does?

- I sort of found the answer and posted it below. However, I still would like to know what Kernel is required for this instalation to work.

Founs this on another chat line after a lot of searching. Still, if anybody has a more recent answer that would be great! Specifically what version kernel is needed.

“Re: Install linux in Lenovo Yoga 720?

‎05-18-2017 01:01 PM

I got a Yoga 720 13", i5-7200u, 1080p display, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD model from bestbuy. I can run Ubuntu 17.04, Mate desktop out of the box with almost everything working as expected. I first tried it in a LIVE USB session and then installed it to the SSD. I created a Win10/Ubuntu dual boot setup as follows.





(1) After booting into Windows for the first time, download and install all updates.. The pre-installed Lenovo service utility prompts to update the firmware. I went ahead with it.



(2) It is necessary to change the storage setting in the BIOS from RAID to AHCI, in order for linux to recognize the internal SSD. As the pre-installed Win10 was installed in the RAID mode, chaning the mode as above will break Win10. In order to prevent this, before changing the mode, follow the steps outlined here to switch Win10 from RAID to AHCI without reinstallation.

http://triplescomputers.com/blog/unc...-to-ahci-opera...

Alternatively, you might make a fresh installation of Win10 in the AHCI.



(3) After switching Win10 to AHCI shrink the single windows partition using Disk Management utility to the desired capacity and make space for linux.

http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/201...ake-space.html



(4) Boot with Ubuntu Live-USB from USB 3.1 port. I installed Ubuntu in the UEFI mode.



(5) Using gparted, create desired partitions. I created 3 partitions. (root installation, /home and swap) and perform Ubuntu installation.



(6) The dual boot setup is now ready! Upon rebooting, the UEFI boot menu shows options to boot into linux or windows. With Kernel 4.10 in Ubuntu 17.04, most of the things works out of the box as a laptop. (Wifi, sound, mic, suspend/resume, touch screen) I haven't yet fiddeled around to see if it correctly works in the tablet mode.



(7) Update Ubuntu using the standard commands,

sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade



I am yet to test this setup thoroughly, but the command,

acpi -b

estimates the battery life >7 hours, in the idle mode.(medium screen brightness, wifi on, browsing in Google chrome/editing documents,no videos or cpu intensive tasks) Normally I keep the AC supply plugged in while working indoors.



(8) It seems that the battery is discharging faster than expected in the suspend mode. 2% discharge after 10 hours of suspend. I am investigating this.



I hope these instructions help someone to setup dual boot in this laptop!”

Just an update. elementary OS loki does in fact work on the Lenovo Yoga 720 13IKB. I dualbooted with Windows 10 but limux runs perfectly smooth! Here are some sites I found that helped me dual boot with elementary.
Forum on askubuntu
elementary Dual boot instructions
Lenovo with linux support

If anybody is thinking of using the Lenovo Yoga 13IKB with elementary OS, I can testify that it works marvelously! Even the touchscreen seems to work fairly well.

I'm thinking of getting a Yoga 520, which is very similar to the 720. I'd like to know, how good does the touchscreen and stylus work on ubuntu? Which softwares are good for taking notes and other functionalities? Does it have palm rejection and does it admit multi touch gestures?

I'm also looking at a yoga 510, which has a passive touchscreen with no stylus. Any experience with that? Should I go for the 520 if i want to use the touchscreen features or do both work reasonably well? Thanks!

Any more updates?

I would like to get a Lenovo Yoga 720 2-in-1 13.3, Intel® Core ™ i7 -7500U processor, 8GB RAM DDR4, 256GB PCIe SSD. I am thinking on having it dual boot with Ubuntu. Does the touchscreen works well? Any experience with it?

Ta

I am using this laptop (Lenovo Yoga 720 15", i7-7700HQ, which I think may be different than the model with the i7-*U processors) very happily with Fedora and kernel version 4.17.3. When I was shopping for the laptop, I read that some of the older kernels had problems (no trackpad drivers, for instance). I have not used Ubuntu, but presumably the newest version ships with a new-enough kernel that those would not be an issue.

My model has pen support (I am not sure if that is universal), and the pen works as well as any other Wacom pen I have used on Linux (so hiccups here and there, but basically fine). Note that the lower button of Lenovo's official pen is reported as the eraser tip, so if you want to use it as a right mouse click you have to go into xsetwacom and remap it.

The finger touchscreen works, but I have some weird-to-reproduce issues with it. I run Plasma, and sometimes it acts like a click-and-hold when I use the touchscreen on Plasma (or other KDE) elements, but it seems to have no issues with GTK-based applications. I had this problem with my last touchscreen laptop for awhile too, but those cleared up. I wonder if there's just some oddness with the way Plasma handles touchscreens.

One thing I have not got working is the dedicated GPU (nvidia 1050) with Bumblebee: I had that fully set up and working on my old laptop (940m), so I followed the same steps this time but whenever I launch something with Primus the video card immediately switches off! If anyone successfully has the dGPU working (with any distro) I would be glad to know!

Overall I am very happy with this laptop. Mine has great performance, lots of RAM, and the battery life is pretty good: ~6-8 hrs of touchscreen note-taking with only basic tweaks.

Hi,

I have the same laptop (YOGA 720 15" I7700HQ, GTX 1050, 16Gb of ram, 500Gb of SSD) and yesterday I tried to run a live version of Ubuntu 18.04 on a USB stick without success: I can access to the USB's boot menu and read the Ubuntu bootloader (really small character actually, I have a 4K screen) but when I choose "try Ubuntu without install" the screen becomes black and nothing happens.
Is there something else I have to do in the BIOS to make this works?

Sorry about just now responding guys. Everything seems to work great on my 13 inch model, even the touch screen. However the touchscreen integration doesn’t include multigestures or anything really helpful, it’s just nice to click on things without moving the mouse really. I don’t know about Juno yet but out-of-the-box the fingerprint reader is useless. But, overall, everything runs smoothl. Dual booting was a pain and thanks to a harware update I had to fresh start windows once but, if you follow the instuctions in the links provided above it does work.