Linux on huawei matebook x pro

A subreddit dedicated to Huawei MateBook laptops

Thought i’d give back a little bit today and write a post about my experience on the Matebook X pro.

The Matebook X pro has become my main workstation laptop for my job as a Linux Administrator. I bring it everywhere I go, and use it for every portion of my job. The specific model I have: i7-8550U, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, GeForce MX150

Currently I am running Kubuntu 18.04 for my OS, and I have had no specific issues testing out Debian 9, or Centos7. I chose Kubuntu because i enjoy the KDE desktop environment the most, and wanted to use ubuntu for some specific packages we use often.

The hardware feels fantastic. I usually am more comfortable on a thinkpad due to the excellent keyboard, but after a couple months on the matebook x pro, i don’t feel a difference in my typing ability. The keyboard is definitely much more shallow than the keyboards i’m used to, however this is not much of a criticism, just an observation. After typing on this device for a while, the keyboard has become very comfortable to use, and the sound that it makes when typing is actually immensely satisfying. It sounds kind of like a little muffled bump.

The chassis is very durably built, the aluminum feels fantastic to the touch and overall build quality is among the best laptops i have ever used. The build of this device outclasses every mac laptop. All of the edges feel great, ant the rounded bezel on the top of the screen is just so damn smooth! every inch of this device just feels great in the hand.

Extending to parts that feel great:The trackpad. It feels super smooth and precise, and is very large. Normally i do not like large trackpads since i often hit them when typing, but the size is just about right where i never really hit the touchpad accidentally, and on the times i do nothing happens because the palm rejection on the trackpad is excellent.

The screen has had no issues in Linux. There is some concerns when buying a HiDPI display for linux, as not all desktop environments scale well when going past 2k, but there has been no issues for me in KDE. The text was a little small on first start, but after setting the «Force DPI: 175» on fonts, everything seems just about right. Text is clear and very crisp.

Battery life is also excellent using Kernel 4.15. I do not have the GPU enabled, since everything i do is mostly text based. Currently i am getting 8-12 hours on a single charge which is more than enough to last me a day at work. I can get to 50% charge in about 30 minutes using the USB-C charger that comes with the laptop. Heat has not been an issue either with the massive heatsink inside the unit. Even while charging and doing high intensity workloads, the laptop has never felt more than «warm», and is still very comfortable to touch.

On average the machine uses between 3 and 5 watts of power, making it incredibly lean, however it does not feel slow or sluggish.. The machine is very fast despite using a very low amount of power. I usually have the brightness set to about 30% which is still very bright on this laptop due to the display being able to go up to 450~ nits at maximum brightness. When watching movies at full brightness the colours are absolutely stunning.

Things currently working

Webcam
FN Keys and FN Key lock.
FN + Arrow Keys for Home, End, Pgup, Pgdn
brightness, volume, backlight, and all Function keys 1-12 work as expected.
GPU through BumbleBee for enabling the GPU acceleration in specific applications also works without needing a screen or kernel reset. (I don’t use this personally, but did test it. Afterwords i uninstalled the nvidia driver)
Adaptive Brightness
Sleep and Hibernate
Multitouch on trackpad
Touch on screen works without any kind of ghosting. (no gestures support on touchscreen in KDE, so i could not test that)
USB-C Charging and data. Works with all my adapters
USB-A works with all my drives and adapters.

Not Working

Mute key (over F7)
Wifi disable key (over F9)
Display change key (over F8)
Mail launcher hotkey (over F10)
Fingerprint reader (metal ring around power button)

Minor Fixes

The trackpad DOES have a bit of sloppiness to it when it first arrived, and had a slight «Crunch» to the click.

This was caused by a slight tolerance gap underneath the trackpad, allowing the tabs that hold the trackpad in place to wiggle. The gap is INCREDIBLY small, and there is a very simple fix . I tried using a business card under mine first, however the business card was too thick. I ended up using a thin piece of a Post-It note slid underneath the trackpad and stuck it to the battery. It was a tight fit, but after this simple fix there is absolutely no more wiggle in the trackpad. The bottom is held on with 8 Torx T5 screws, and the bottom pulls off easily with a suction cup (so you don’t need to pull on the clips inside)

The not working things are super minimal in my opinion as i do not use these keys in my workflow, as it’s just as easy to launch them with the Super (windows) key and typing the application name in the application menu. I generally keep my Function keys as F1-12 anyway since i am using those options more than i am adjusting volume or screen brightness.

On my machine the speakers all seem to be working (at least it sounds like they are). I am getting both left and right channel audio on the correct sides, and this thing can get LOUD. Holy crap can this thing bump up the volume. I assume that maybe the upward facing speakers are not playing since sound seems to come from the cutouts on the sides but not directly from the grills, but the thing sounds so good already i haven’t felt the need to test if all 4 are firing properly. The sound is fantastic as it is, i’m very pleased with the clarity, and did not want to spend the time implementing any of the known workarounds to see if anything changes.

BIOS is fairly limited in options, however this device does support VT-d for anyone looking to do virtualization. I have had up to 4 VM’s running on this machine at once so far, and there was no noticeable decrease in performance. Hardware virtualization works fine in LXC and QEMU/KVM, so if you’re a developer or admin that needs virtual machine support, i can verify that it’s all 100% working.

In addition to all this, there are some very nice features that Huawei has included in the device that put it just one step further ahead in my opinion:

The FN lock button, and FN key functionality: — when using the keyboard, you have the ability to toggle the FN keys for either f1-12, or the media keys. HOWEVER, regardless of the mode that you are in, pressing CTRL or ALT in addition to a function key ALWAYS triggers the desired command. For example, ALT+F4 will close the window regardless of whether FN lock is enabled or disabled. This avoids the annoyance of having to remember whether you are in media-key mode or F1-12 mode when going to execute commands.
Status LED’s: — When looking at the keyboard you will realize there’s no «Status lights» anywhere on this device. They are completely invisible when not lit, and sit underneath the keys. When you hit CapsLock or FNLock, a little white light will appear in the corner of the key and shine through, so you can easily see if it is enabled or not. The same thing is apparent next to the USB-C ports, where the light will indicate charging. The hidden pinhole LED’s really add to the fit and finish of the machine.
The Hinge: — Finally, a laptop that has a hinge not made of complete garbage. The hinge on this device is super smooth when opening and closing, but remains stiff enough to keep the display in place. You can open the device with one hand and the body will remain on the desk, but when typing on it there is absolutely no screen-wiggle. It’s an absolutely wonderful bit of engineering.
The Keyboard backlight — This is taken for granted most of the time now-days, but this laptop does back lighting right. You can manually enable the backlight on the keyboard, buy after a period of time without using the keyboard, it will shut off on it’s own. It also shuts off in bright settings which is great, since backlit keyboards in a bright setting are often harder to read. If the ambient light sensor detects that the device is in a dark location, then the keyboard will automatically illuminate when you begin typing again. I have never once needed to use the backlight key to enable or disable the keyboards backlight because it was simply implemented in a very intuitive way.

Overall, this is the best laptop i have ever owned, and one of the most painless devices to get setup on linux. It all works out of the box, and any tweaks needed are solely for personal preference. This device is totally ready for consumers and also rock solid for the enterprise worker as well that wants a nice device to work from. This device feels more premium than any apple product i’ve worked from, and completely blows away the competition for a linux ready laptop.

Everything essential works out of the box, and doesn’t just work, but performs exceptionally well.

Feel free to ask me any questions about my experience, or about using linux on this device. I’d be happy to look into it for you.

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