this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
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Ironically, a few months ago I wanted to setup Debian 12 on a ThinkPad X13, which feels like the most boring and stable thing one can possibly say. It installed just fine - but would fail to boot once installed. I absolutely require a cellular modem to work (I'm assuming this was the booting issue, but it's a snapdragon X55, it's been out... 4 years now?) and I tried 10+ other distros, which basically didn't work/support the modem, so I ended up sighing and having to go with kubuntu.
I'm mostly happy with it (it 'works' and hasn't broken yet) but I shouldn't have to distrohop, read guides and get lost in a sea of dead links to (not, except *ubu) get WWAN working. It should work ootb, no fuss. So I expected Debian would have no issue, no bullshit. Bah.
Snapdragon is famously awful on laptops, they claim to support Linux but the support is shaky. The primary reason why you're suffering from those issues is because snapdragon on Linux is absolutely not stable (its also generally not stable even on Windows), had you chosen any AMD64 laptop you would be fine. Personally I recommend installing Armbians x13s branch but I can also recommend Arch Linux arm. Keep in mind if you want the most amount of features working you will need to use Arch Linux Arm, I know its ironic that you need to use Arch for stability but keep in mind most Linux distros have ignored snapdragon until the X Elite. That means Arch Linux Arm will have the most stability updates in addition newer kernels have improved support.
It's the X13, not the X13s variant. Intel chip, generation two. The snapdragon is the 5G WWAN modem, not the cpu.
Cellular modems on Linux are even more niche but better supported. I recommend trying Fedora, ive never personally used a modem (My Thinkpad T440p has a sim card slot but ive never used it).