Arch on ThinkPads

orschiro · 2012-11-21 08:08:55

Hello,

Since there is no non-machine specific collection of information in the wiki and some of the machine-specific are quite outdated I would like to collect some general things of what users of ThinkPads and Arch do in order to get a harmonious interplay.

Especially I am interested in WM and DE independent solutions and tools, installed packages as well as small scripts that facilitate your daily work and make use of all what a ThinkPad has to offer.

Thanks!

Last edited by orschiro (2012-11-21 08:09:15)

masteryod · 2012-11-21 16:30:23

- Thinkpads are known to be Linux friendly
- Nowadays most of things should just work out-of-the-box
- There is a lot of wiki pages in Arch wiki for Thinkpad specific models (it's hard to be up to date with older models, even though most information are still true)
- Basically you do regular laptop installation + one of the HDAPS tool from AUR + tweaks for you model (look at particular wiki page on Arch wiki for tweaks, hot-keys etc.)
- I don't think that there is Linux equivalent of "think-vintage" software
- Think-light (if you have it) is OS independent thing (at least it was in t43 era) so no problem here
- For more tweaking e.g batter life you've got thinkpad wiki pages and non-thinkpad wiki pages along with forum threads about it like this one: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=134109&p=1
- There are scripts and AUR packages to control fan speed

PS What model of Thinkpad do you have?

Last edited by masteryod (2012-11-21 16:32:00)

WonderWoofy · 2012-11-21 16:38:30

I made this... is this what you are asking for?

sasek · 2012-11-21 22:40:26

I have Arch installed on ThinkPad x200. Almost everything works out-of-the-box. For those which doesn't - thinkwiki.org is source of solutions.

cfr · 2012-11-21 23:43:48

Just to note that there is not an HDAPS solution for all models. (Mine is unsupported as far as I can tell.)

I'm not sure how helpful non-machine specific information is likely to be. Most of the machine-specific pages focus on stuff that is specific to that hardware e.g. work arounds, things to watch out for etc. Is there really anything specific to ThinkPads in general which is not applicable to laptops in general?

Last edited by cfr (2012-11-22 00:01:27)

ANOKNUSA · 2012-11-22 00:40:31

The T-series and W-series have a long history of being Linux-friendly; I've heard good things about the X-series, too. Nearly all of the hardware on the mobo is Intel, meaning almost all the drivers are open-source. Free piece of advice to any future TP users, though: Don't skimp on the wifi card. The realtek ones are crap in certain circumstances, and Lenovo sticks a whitelist in the BIOS that keeps you from just buying a new one later on (without flashing the BIOS yourself, anyway).

As masteryod pointed out, the light (as well as media keys, brightness control, etc.) are either bound to the hardware or read as typical "XF86_*" keys, so they also work more-or-less out-of-the-box. The only things that I really needed to tweak were the settings of the TrackPoint dealy in the center of the keyboard.

The one thing that's really missing--supposedly, not for much longer--is reliable support for the hybrid graphics some models have. Oh, and if Linux is your only OS option, controlling battery charging through the tp_smapi kernel module is only supported on some machines, sadly.

cfr · 2012-11-22 00:48:08

The hard drive protection stuff is similarly only supported on some machines...

I also have issues with bluetooth and I've seen reports of issues with the sd reader (but I don't have a card so I've never used it).

WonderWoofy · 2012-11-22 03:30:53

Yeah, my edge does not support the tp_smapi module, though on the thinkwiki site, I saw something that indicated that this is true for all ivyt bridge machines. And no hdaps either, but I have a ssd, so that doesn't really matter anymore.

I would like to second the "don't skimp on the wifi card" thing. I bought my machine having read that the Thinkpad b/g/n card was a braodcom and was workable. Between that time and the time I ordered my machine, Lenovo started using realtek, and the card totally sucks. I ended up flashing a bios w/o the whitelist and installing an Intel Centrino 6235, which then worked out of the box (though I think I had the firware on my computer already).

The only other issues I had was that my sdcard reader is also realtek, though they have a buildable module on thier site. It is kind of ghetto though, as it throws out some harmless errors (though frequently) and polls so god damn much it east battery like crazy. I just load the module as needed. Also, my ethernet is a realtek r8168 (rev 7), and I needed the r8168 module from the repos. But I have seen reports that other revisions of this card work perfectly fine with the module in the kernel tree (r8169).

MadTux · 2012-11-22 17:47:11

orschiro wrote:

Hello,
Since there is no non-machine specific collection of information in the wiki and some of the machine-specific are quite outdated I would like to collect some general things of what users of ThinkPads and Arch do in order to get a harmonious interplay.
Especially I am interested in WM and DE independent solutions and tools, installed packages as well as small scripts that facilitate your daily work and make use of all what a ThinkPad has to offer.
Thanks!

You might want to see if your machine supports tp_smapi, which gives you access to additional hardware features and harddisk protection:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Tp_smapi

There is also a nice script for power management specifically for ThinkPads:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Tlp

If you happen to have a ThinkPad with TrackPoint, you may wish to look at this to get it working correctly:

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_co … TrackPoint

Arch Linux

#1 2012-11-21 08:08:55

Arch on ThinkPads

#2 2012-11-21 16:30:23

Re: Arch on ThinkPads

#3 2012-11-21 16:38:30

Re: Arch on ThinkPads

#4 2012-11-21 22:40:26

Re: Arch on ThinkPads

#5 2012-11-21 23:43:48

Re: Arch on ThinkPads

#6 2012-11-22 00:40:31

Re: Arch on ThinkPads

#7 2012-11-22 00:48:08

Re: Arch on ThinkPads

#8 2012-11-22 03:30:53

Re: Arch on ThinkPads

#9 2012-11-22 17:47:11

Re: Arch on ThinkPads

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