Brain dump: MateBook 13 (Wright-W19) running Debian heavily inspired by lidel's documentation of running Linux on MateBook X.
Huawei MateBook 13, released in 2019, has at least two modifications (different CPUs, integrated vs. dedicated graphics). Both come with Microsoft Windows 10 and there initially was no information at all concerning Linux support.
I am running Debian on the more simple MateBook 13 variant, model Wright-W19. This repository documents what works and what does not.
| Device | Model | Works | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Core i5-8265U | ✔ Yes | 8 cores, power states etc seem to work out of the box |
| Graphics | Intel UHD Graphics 620 | ✔ Yes | via standard kernel driver |
| Memory | 8192 MB | ✔ Yes | |
| Display | 13 inch 2:3, 2160x1440 (2K) | ✔ Yes | resolution is correctly detected by xrandr, backlight control works via native function keys and can be controlled by KDE settings |
| Storage | Samsung SSD, 256 GB | ✔ Yes | via standard kernel driver |
| Wifi | Intel Cannon Point Wireless-AC 8265 (a/b/g/n/ac) | ✔ Yes | requires kernel 4.14 and firmware (firmware-iwlwifi non-free package) |
| Bluetooth | Intel Bluetooth 5.0 | ✔ Yes | works as expected |
| Soundcard | Intel Cannon Point-LP High Definition Audio | ✔ Yes | see below for details |
| Speakers | ✔ Yes | ||
| Microphone | ✔ Yes | out of the box | |
| Webcam | HD Camera (13D3:56C6) | ✔ Yes | works out of the box, indicating light too |
| Ports | 2 × USB-C | ✔ Yes | charging works only via left port, external display only via right one, but it is a known hardware limitation of the laptop |
| Power button | ✔ Yes | needs to be pressed for at least a second to generate event | |
| Fingerprint Reader | some proprietary sensor | ❌ No | located on the power button |
| Battery | Dynapack HB4593J6ECW (42 Wh) | ✔ Yes | see below for details |
| Lid | ACPI-compliant | ✔ Yes | works as expected, though ACPI complains in logs |
| Power management | ✔ Yes | works, see below for details | |
| Keyboard | ✔ Yes | see below for details | |
| Touchpad | ELAN962C:00 04F3:30D0 | ⁉ Kinda | touchpad is detected and works in KDE (though not in Debian installer), but almost all options are greyed out; double- and three-finger clicks work, so does double-finger scrolling, multi-touch gestures can not be set up; see below for details on log flood issue |
| Port Extender | MateDock 2 dongle included with the laptop | ✔ Yes | D-SUB, full-size HDMI, USB-C and USB-A work as expected |
Huawei provides downloadable BIOS updates packaged for Windows. With some effort, these can be installed from Linux.
To update BIOS, make sure fwupd is installed. You'll also need firmware-packager script and gcab that it depends on. I strongly advice having a bootable USB drive for bootloader recovery close at hand, too. Laptop should be on AC power for firmware updater to work.
PLEASE read through all the steps before you start and make sure you have at least a vague understanding of the process! Don't hold me responsible if you trash your system or brick your BIOS!!!
-
Download BIOS from Huawei website. Version 1.0.5 (we'll use it as an example) comes in a
.zipfile that contains a signature and another.zipfile with the same name. You need that second.zipfile, so extract it to the directory you havefirmware-packagerscript in. -
./firmware-packager --firmware-name HuaweiBIOS --device-guid 4ab52f4e-04c0-47ec-af33-a4f5c28ce0b7 --developer-name Huawei --release-version 0.1.0.5 --exe ./MateBook_13_BIOS_1.05.zip --bin ./MateBook_13_BIOS_1.05/WRIWU105.bin --out bios.cab -
fwupdmgr install bios.cab -
Reboot (or hibernate) and hold F12 upon boot to select updater from list of devices. It reboots again during the process, so make sure to press F12 during the second reboot, too, for the process to continue.
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Now your new BIOS is installed and you may check its version holding F2 during the next reboot. However, your UEFI boot record is likely messed up as the result of Step 4, so your system won't boot from SSD any longer.
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Fix your bootloader using the bootable USB drive. I used a Debian Live image with persistence that had
grub-efi-amd64and its dependencies pre-installed, so it was only a matter of mounting/bootand/boot/efito/mnt/system/and issuingsudo grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/system/boot --bootloader-id=debian --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/mnt/system/boot/efi
Your mileage may vary.
Out of the box fan control is very much acceptable, with fans starting up as processor heats up under load and shutting down when not required. In general, under "office workload" the laptop remains cool and fans remain switched off.
If you want correct CPU temperature displayed in byobu status notifications, add the following line to your .byobu/statusrc:
MONITORED_TEMP=/sys/class/hwmon/hwmon1/temp1_input
Sound generally works OK out of the box, the only thing not working is headphones autodetection (i.e. it is necessary to manually switch from speakers to headphones and back). This can be fixed, as pointed out by ffftwo:
sudo echo "options snd_hda_intel model=dell-headset-multi" >> /etc/modprobe.d/sound.conf
Main battery features, such as current status, charging/discharging rate and remaining time estimates work out of the box.
Huawei's proprietary PC Manager allows to switch on battery protection with several modes for charge/discharge threshold while connected to AC power. For instance, it is possible to make the laptop maintain the battery charge between 40% and 70%, which is supposed to greatly reduce battery wear (batteries are known to lose capacity when constantly sitting at close to 100% charged). The problem is that Huawei PC Manager is a Windows-only piece of software.
Huawei-WMI device driver fully supports Matebook 13, including settings for battery protection, since version 3.0. The driver only works with Linux kernel 5.0 and newer.
For those running older kernels I developed a script (you can download archive with this and the other script from releases page). The script depends on ioport (available as package in Debian) and needs to be run as root:
sudo batpro [help|status|off|home|office|travel]
The first three options are self-explanatory. home sets thresholds to 40% and 70%, office to 70% and 90%, travel to 95% and 100% (these are the three modes Huawei PC Manager makes available). You can also do
sudo batpro custom [1-100] [1-100]
to set the thresholds to any percentages you like. This batpro script is really a modification of a more general script by aymanbagabas, so you can use that one instead if you like. Both are based on a dirty hack, and the proper solution is using Huawei-WMI driver.
Battery protection works by not charging the laptop if battery is already above the minimal threshold when plugged into AC, and stopping the charging as soon as the battery charge reaches the maximum threshold. The battery controller is known to restore the thresholds to defaults after time: on MateBook X it is known to happen after a reboot or three, and Angry Ameba demonstrated (source in Russian) that battery controller settings get reset after several hours on a switched off MateBook 13. Obviously, Huawei PC Manager monitors this and restores these settings as required. Huawei-WMI driver and my script don't.
This behaviour may be really annoying: you hibernate your laptop, wake it up next Monday, work for several hours, plug it in for a night and go to bed, only to find out in the morning that battery protection is off and the battery stayed on 100% for good six hours. This can easily be fixed using
systemd(provided that you use Huawei-WMI driver), all you need to do is put this script in your/usr/lib/systemd/system-sleep/and make sure it is executable. Beware, though, that if you plug the laptop in before waking it up, the magic won't work (knowing that Windows' behaviour is exactly the same may provide some consolation).
There's also a system tray applet if you would rather have some GUI.
Suspend to S3 state works out of the box. For hibernation to work Secure boot must be disabled in BIOS. Laptop seems to wake up without any issues.
Keyboard mostly works out of the box, including the not-so-documented hotkeys (Fn+Left for Home, Fn+Right for End, Fn+Up for PgUp, Fn+Down for PgDn). However, Microphone Mute, WiFi Switch and Huawei keys don't work out of the box.
To have them working there's a driver that is already incorporated in Linux kernel, just not yet in Debian. It can be installed (v1.0) using DKMS .deb package that the author provides.
Version 2.0 of the same driver allows for the Microphone LED to work, too. Unfortunately, this requires running kernel 5.0 or later (avalable from Debian Experimental).
Behaviour of the top row of keys on MateBook 13 is somewhat complex. By default, they behave as special keys (brightness, volume, etc.), but if you press them simultaneously with Fn or any modifier (Ctrl, Alt, Shift) they behave as F-keys (F1 through F12). You can press Fn once so that an LED on it lights up, then the top row of keys starts behaving as F-keys, with or without any modifier (including Fn itself). This behaviour can be lived with, but you can't do things like Ctrl+Ins or Alt+Shift+PrtSc (because Ins and PrtSc are F11 and F12, respectively, and pressing them with modifier forces them to be F-keys).
Since BIOS v1.05 this behaviour was changed slightly for
PrtScandInskeys (F11andF12). WithoutFnkey, the keys work as follows:
Key Shift Ctrl Alt F10Shift+F10 Ctrl+F10 Alt+F10 F11Shift+PrtSc Ctrl+PrtSc no keypress F12Shift+Ins Ctrl+Ins Alt+Ins Still no way to do
Alt+PrtSc.
Fortunately, Huawei's PC Manager has an option to invert this behaviour. If an option is activated (we call this option Fn-Lock), the upper row of keys become F-keys, and act like special keys only when Fn is pressed or switched on. In this mode other modifiers don't change behaviour, so it becomes possible to do Alt+PrtSc. Unfortunately, PC Manager is Windows-only.
Huawei-WMI driver since version 2.0 makes it possible to use Fn-Lock on Linux. For those running Linux kernel older than 5.0 there's a simple script (you can download archive with this and the other script from releases page).
The script depends on ioport (available as package in Debian) and needs to be run as root:
sudo fnlock [on|off|toggle|status]
The system tray applet also works (just in case you would rather have some GUI).
Out of the box touchpad floods system logs with error messages incomplete report (14/65535) upon every touch - up to the point where rubbing your finger against touchpad produces 15% CPU usage by syslog. The corresponding patch is available in mainline kernel, but not in Debian (yet), and the patch can not be directly applied to the kernel version currently in Debian. Patching the kernel with adapted patch fixes this issue.
A quick (and, admittedly, dirty) way to patch a Debian kernel:
$ apt source linux
$ cd linux-4.19.28 <<< or whatever version is current
$ bash debian/bin/test-patches ../elan-touchpad-oldkernel.patch <<< or whichever one you're applying, and you can apply more than one here
<<< have a beer or three, this is going to take quite some time
$ cd ..
$ sudo dpkg -i linux-image-4.19.0-4-amd64-unsigned_4.19.28-2a~test_amd64.deb <<< or whichever you've just compiled
Thanks to Angry Ameba for kindly supplying the information necessary to make battery protection and Fn-Lock work.
Eternal gratiude and enormous thanks to Ayman Bagabas for single-handedly developing Huawei-WMI driver and sharing tons of useful information.