Debian on Thinkpad P14s Gen4 AMD

As of 2026-07-05, Debian Trixie can be installed on the Thinkpad P14s Gen4 AMD using the trixie netinst image.

Contents

  1. Debian on Thinkpad P14s Gen4 AMD
    1. Overall status
    2. Photo
    3. Post-installation fixes
      1. Low backlight brightness at boot

Overall status

Core Components

Boot Standard Kernel:

{OK}

LAN network card:

{OK}

Detect hard drives:

{OK}

Extra Features

CPU Frequency Scaling

{OK}

Hibernation

[?]

Sleep / Suspend

{OK}

Wayland

{OK}

Switch to External Screen

{OK}

Mouse

- Built-in (Trackpoint)

{OK}

- Built-in (Touchpad)

{OK}

Modem

[?]

Wi-Fi

{OK}

Bluetooth

{OK}

Keyboard's Special Keys

{OK}

Camera

{OK}

Sound

{OK}

Legend :
{OK} = OK ; {X} Unsupported(No Driver) ; /!\ = Error (Couldn't get it working); [?] Unknown, Not Test ; [-] Not-applicable

{i} = Configuration Required; X-( = Only works with a non-free driver and or firmware

Photo

photo.jpg

Post-installation fixes

Low backlight brightness at boot

If you are using a full-disk encryption setup, the screen backlight will be very dim on each boot making the password prompt difficult to see. The system backlight will be restored after the disk is decrypted.

We can set a custom udev rule and include it in the initramfs to have the backlight set to a full-brightness value in order to better see the password prompt on boot: 

$ sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/81-backlight.rules <<EOF
# Use full backlight brightness for plymouth login screen
#
# Note that the brightness value is different depending on the kernel version
# used on the system. Comment in/out depending on what you are running.

# 7.0 kernel (forky, trixie-backports)
#SUBSYSTEM=="backlight", ACTION=="add", KERNEL=="amdgpu_bl0", ATTR{brightness}="64764"

# 6.12 kernel (trixie)
SUBSYSTEM=="backlight", ACTION=="add", KERNEL=="amdgpu_bl0", ATTR{brightness}="255"
EOF
$ sudo update-initramfs -u