I've got a 6th gen X1 carbon and under windows the thing has the fan on high all the time. Switched to Linux (mint) and I went a couple months before I heard the fan, doing all the same things. I don't know what windows is doing these days but it isn't doing it for me, the end user.
T460s user here, on Windows (and Hackintosh, for the sake of bad comparison), my system idled ~40-45c and the fans also ran constantly. Put Linux on it, add auto-cpufreq, and then it idles ~27c (30c with external display). No fans unless I launch games, have heavy network usage for >5 minutes, or compile something.
I'd probably give the Macbooks (or this new Thinkpad) a closer look if I didn't work with Docker constantly. As it stands though, ARM and x86 are still not like comparisons, and still not even remotely capable of the same workloads. I have high hopes for the future of RISC arches, but we're undeniably trapped in an age of x86 dominance.
On Windows, did you use the Lenovo provided software to manage cooling? If you did a fresh install of Windows and didn't install the OEM fan and CPU tooling, but then did install CPU tooling on Linux, its not quite a fair comparison.
I've got a 460s and it will run pretty warm if you let it. If you tell it to not run so hot it'll keep the CPU throttled down a bit more aggressively and keep it cooler. That generation of Intel CPU was always a bit on the warm side when it wanted to actually do anything. Especially anything related to video encoding/decoding, using stuff like Zoom or Meet or Teams really makes the machine get warm.
I did a fresh install, but Lenovo's management software has been notoriously bloatware-ish, so I was apprehensive to keep it on my system. I was never really claiming for it to be a fair comparison either, even if this thing somehow ran hotter on Linux I'd probably wouldn't use Windows anyways.
The machine can definitely run pretty hot if you crank the performance profiles though, that's for sure. I've managed to hit 70c while playing music/running CPU intensive games on an external monitor, and I definitely think you could push it further with more CPU twiddling. For regular use though, a hearty underclock still renders the device usable with low temps and a good amount of battery life extension.
Well, for starters, virtualizing anything on MacOS is a pain in the butt. It's an open secret that Docker on Mac has performance issues, kernel interface problems and general compatibility hiccups that don't exist when the host is running Linux. Then there's the fact that quite a number of Docker containers aren't ARM-ready, and even the ones that are won't be an accurate portrayal of how they'll behave on other arches (most systems I deploy to are still x86).
Like I said, ARM may well have it's day, but right now it's just full of compromises that I simply can't make. So long as x86 benefits from the same big.LITTLE architecture that ARM has been transitioning to, I don't think I'll really have much use for another arch until RISC-V hits the mainstream.
On the other hand, I use a Windows on a Intel m3-6y30 machine and the fan hardly ever runs despite it being a fairly anemic system by today's standards.
One has to think that all these users who can't seem to configure and operate Windows properly are probably not configuring and operating Linux (which exposes much deeper control and complexity to the user) properly either. "It's a poor craftsman that blames their tools", after all.
