Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 (14APU8) & Linux

How-to guide to get proper Linux support on the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 (14APU8).

Last update : 20/03/2025 (BIOS M6CN44WW)

Compatibility

Component	Description	Status
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 7840S	✅ Working OoB
GPU	AMD Radeon 780M	⚠️ See GPU
Memory	16-32GB LPPDR5X	✅ Working OoB
Storage	512GB-1TB NVMe SSD	✅ Working OoB
Display	14" 2944x1840@90 OLED	✅ Working OoB
WiFi	RTL8852CE	✅ Working OoB
Bluetooth	RTL8852CU	✅ Working OoB
Sound (Subwoofer)	TI 2781	✅ Working with custom firmware
Touchpad	Unknown	✅ Working OoB
Camera	720p	✅ Working OoB
Suspend	-	✅ Working with injected SSDT
Hibernate	-	❌ Broken
Secure Boot	-	⚠️ See Secure Boot
IR Camera auth	720p	⚠️ See Howdy

Notes

• If some updates are missing, feel free to open issues / PR.
• I'm not the maintener of the custom firmware / injected SSDT, if you have any problems related with them, open issues on their related repos.

Suspend

Suspend will not work on fresh installation (the laptop instantly wakes up when closing the lid). See this issue on GitLab for more details. You will need to inject a custom injected SSDT to make it work and depending on your distro, it can be more or less tricky.

If your using Arch Linux, you can use the mkinitcpio's acpi_override hook.

sudo mkdir /etc/initcpio/acpi_override
sudo cp ssdt6.aml /etc/initcpio/acpi_override/

then edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and add acpi_override to the HOOKS array.

HOOKS=(... acpi_override)

Then rebuild the initramfs with sudo mkinitcpio -P and reboot.

Freeze on wake up

If your system crash when waking up from suspend sometimes, BIOS M6CN42WW and later fix this issue. To update the BIOS without Windows, see this section below.

Hibernation

⚠️ This hasn't been tested in a while; it might have improved with the recent BIOS updates.

Hibernation is still quite buggy on this system, see this issue on GitLab for more details. You should at least disable suspend-then-hibernate to prevent unexpected crashes, and disable hibernation completely if your not using this feature:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/sleep.conf

and edit it like this :

[Sleep]
AllowSuspend=yes
AllowHibernation=no
AllowSuspendThenHibernate=no
AllowHybridSleep=no

Secure Boot

Because your using a custom injected SSDT, you will need to disable Secure Boot in your BIOS settings, otherwise the SSDT will not be loaded.

You can also sign the SSDT with your own keys to make it work with Secure Boot, but this is a more advanced topic and I will not cover it here.

Sound

Sound needs a custom firmware to work properly. See this repo.

You can use alsamixer to adjust the sound levels of the subwoofers and the main speakers (DAC 1 & 2).

Sound will not be as good as on Windows (the 4 subwoofers are not calibrated precisely and Dolby Atmos spacial effect is missing.)

However, you can mitigate this with Easy Effects. There is a preset that I made to improve the sound in the easyeffect folder (I'm not an expert so if you want to make a better one, do not forget to share it :) )

Power profiles

On an Arch installation do not forget to install power-profiles-daemon to get control over power profiles.

GPU

The Radeon 780M has some issues related to power profiles. On a fresh installation, the GPU will have some artifacts on the screen using 90 Hz mode. This cannot be fixed at the moment without forcing the GPU to run on a higher power profile. Alternatively, you can use the 60 Hz mode, which will work without any issues.

Updating the BIOS without a Windows installation

You can create a WINPE USB key with the BIOS update file.

1. Creating a WINPE USB key using Ventoy

If you don't have any Windows device, the simplest method is to use Ventoy to create a bootable USB key with WINPE.

1. Go to the Ventoy website and download the latest version.
2. Flash the Ventoy image on the USB key or use the Ventoy tool to create a bootable USB key.
3. Copy a WINPE ISO on the Ventoy USB key (you can get one here)

2. Preparing the BIOS update file

1. Go to the Lenovo website and download the latest BIOS update.
2. Move the BIOS update to a USB key. You can use the Ventoy USB key if you want.

Checking the checksum of the BIOS update is a good practice to avoid bricking your laptop.

3. Booting WINPE & updating the BIOS

1. Reboot the laptop and press F12 to enter the boot menu
2. Select the USB key. If you don't see it, you may need to disable Secure Boot in the BIOS settings.
3. When a terminal is open, run notepad
4. Select file > open file
5. Select file type all files
6. Navigate to the BIOS update tool
7. Select the BIOS update tool, then right click on it and select run
8. Follow the instructions. Never turn off the laptop during the update process, even if you get a black screen.