Clear Linux

Clear Linux is an optimized Linux distribution by Intel.

It performs better than NixOS as desktop experience on X1C7, thus improving on X1C7 - Moderate Performance. In addition, the system is much more reliable, such as there not being any X1C7 WiFi issue (or Thunderbolt issues) so far.

App notes

If using NVIDIA, its proprietary drivers must be manually installed (be sure to copy the long CLI commands in a text file before rebooting the computer post-nouveau-deactivation to avoid having to type them all)
Brave browser: needs to be manually updated
VSCode
- Flatpak install has broken terminal shell (uses some sandboxed shell); install vscode using .rpm instead.
- settings sync: GitHub opens a new VSCode instance, and thus breaks. Manually copy-pasting the auth token in the original window works.
  - Sometimes also Error code 801

External links

NixOS tracker discussion on adopting Clear Linux patches

Links to this page

X1C7 WiFi issue

Update (Sep 8,2021): This issue appears only on NixOS (as well as Ubuntu, and possibly several other distros), but not on Clear Linux.
Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 7 review

The only annoying issue with the Carbon is that the WiFi card included in my laptop experiences periodic disconnections on Linux. Others have reported the same. In the end, the problem vanished when I switched to Clear Linux.