Lenovo Continues Improving Their Linux Support Down To The Hardware Sensors

One of the great Linux hardware milestones of 2020 was Lenovo beginning to offer Linux pre-loads on their desktops/laptops with the likes of Fedora and Ubuntu. But it's been great just not for having another major OEM offering Linux pre-loads but because they have also been engaging directly on Linux support improvements both through their engineers and at partners like Red Hat. That upstream support work has continued nicely.

Since Lenovo began offering Linux pre-loads, their own engineers and Linux partners have worked on Lenovo hardware support improvements including the likes of palm sensor support, ACPI Platform Profile support, and various other improvements to benefit their devices under Linux.

Besides big ticket items like mentioned above, it's also gratifying to see Lenovo engineers engaging on Linux improvements in minor areas like sensor coverage. Hitting the HWMON code ahead of Linux 5.13 is a rather trivial addition for adding the NCT6686D ASIC to the list of hardware supported by the Nuvoton NCT6683 driver.

That NCT6683 addition came from a Lenovo engineer and while a small addition is nice to see Lenovo working on their Linux support down to ensuring the hardware sensors will work on their devices. The NCT6686D chip in turn is used by at least their Lenovo P620 ThinkStation, powered by AMD Ryzen Threadripper.

Granted, Dell has also been engaged in upstream Linux support improvements for years, but it's nice seeing another tier-one engaging directly on Linux improvements not only for the big ticket features but also down to finer items like seeing working motherboard sensors support -- especially with desktop motherboard sensor support being notoriously poor under Linux. Lenovo or not, this queued up patch should also benefit any other motherboards relying on the Nuvoton NCT6686D.