Arch Linux

tab1293

Member

Registered: 2011-08-31

Posts: 7

Thinkpad T420

I just recently bought a Thinkpad T420 and so far I am pretty pleased running Arch on it. I just wanted to see who else has this laptop and what their configurations look like. What kind of battery life are people getting with this machine and how hot is it running? Right now I have only thinkfan installed that fixed the fan issues. My laptop runs at about 45-50 degrees Celsius on average and at 100% battery I get about 5 hours of life. Should I be installing tlp, tp_smapi and laptop-mode-tools? The battery life seems pretty good but I am worried about the temperatures that the laptop is running at. Any advice with this laptop would be appreciated, thanks.

measure

Member

Registered: 2009-07-17

Posts: 62

Re: Thinkpad T420

I just recently bought a Thinkpad T420 and so far I am pretty pleased running Arch on it. I just wanted to see who else has this laptop and what their configurations look like. What kind of battery life are people getting with this machine and how hot is it running? Right now I have only thinkfan installed that fixed the fan issues. My laptop runs at about 45-50 degrees Celsius on average and at 100% battery I get about 5 hours of life. Should I be installing tlp, tp_smapi and laptop-mode-tools? The battery life seems pretty good but I am worried about the temperatures that the laptop is running at. Any advice with this laptop would be appreciated, thanks.

45-50C are perfectly reasonable temperatures for a laptop.

Should you be installing those?  That's not really the right question.  You should read about them (there is plenty of information on them between ThinkWiki ( http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki ) and the Arch Wiki), and decide if you wish to use them.

Personally, I think tp_smapi is essential, as it allows one to set battery thresholds.  I have no idea if your model is supported yet, but it will be eventually if it's not already.

Part of the Arch philosophy is that you have complete control and freedom over your system.  In practice, this means doing some research and deciding what is right for you, not what others have decided was right for them.  Once you've simply asked for advice, you're missing the point a bit.  Furthermore, there's quite a bit of information on the internet regarding running Linux on Thinkpads.  If you've got a hardware problem, almost surely someone else has had it before you (unless it's a user error, in which case this is probably still true).

Thanks,
Ryan