Lenovo ThinkPad X120e

This is a stub to list documentation for proper installation of tools and utilities for the Lenovo ThinkPad X120e lapbook.

There is much good information in this forum thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1699238

Installation

Perhaps the easiest way to install K/X/Ubuntu on this machine is to make a bootable USB drive. This entails downloading the iso image for the installation CD and using USB-Creator to turn a USB flash drive or SD card into a bootable disk. For more information see Installation From a USB Stick.

Either the 64-bit version of Ubuntu or the PAE kernel is required if you want to use more than 4GB of memory in your machine.

To install Ubuntu, first insert the boot medium into the computer. Next, reboot and press F12 when the ThinkPad logo appears. You should be presented with a temporary boot menu. Select your device and hit enter. (Note: you may have to power off the computer and try this a few times for the boot medium to be recognized). From here, Ubuntu may be used or installed as on a live cd.

Main Ubuntu 11.04 installation disk locks up in random places during installation, use alternate Ubuntu install disk image.

problems with EFI grub

Some problems with EFI boot in BIOS are possible when trying to boot after otherwise successful installation. It happens because installer tries to install grub-efi, but EFI boot does not work.

Possible solution, assuming you have installed Ubuntu, but can't boot:

  • set BIOS to allow non-EFI boot
  • boot to Live CD
  • make directiry /mnt/1 , mount installed partition to /mnt/1
  • mount --bind /dev /mnt/1/dev ,same to /proc, /sys
  • chroot /mnt/1
  • aptitude update; aptitude purge grub-efi ; aptitude install grub-pc

11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

VAAPI Video Acceleration

To enable GPU video acceleration, install the fglrx drivers. Then you need to install the latest xvba-video package from Splitted Desktop. Then enable video acceleration in your video player apps. For the version of VLC in the repositories, go to Tools > Preferences, and then under Video, select accelerated video output. Note, the above was adapted from the instructions here which also include instructions for setting up mplayer with VAAPI which may or may not be relevant to Oneiric.

TP-SMAPI

Thinkpads have an accelerometer that can sense if you drop your laptop and make the hard drive brace for impact. To enable this, install the tp-smapi-dkms and hdapsd packages. Then load the tp-smapi kernel module 

sudo modprobe tp-smapi

Then restart hdapsd 

sudo /etc/init.d/hdapsd restart

11.04 Natty Narwal

AMD Video Drivers

To enable the proprietary video drivers, install fglrx.

Note there is a bios update to increase reserved video memory from 64MB to 384MB. It is available from Lenovo in two forms: as a bootable CD version and a Windows executable file. If you purchased your laptop after a certain date, your video memory may already be 384MB.

Wireless

The stock b/g/n wireless card works out of the box on mixed AP devices. Cannot connect if AP is configured to be pure wireless n.

Loses connection with some AP (based on linux hostapd) with default driver. Proprietary driver from Realtek solves this problem.

Power Management

Suspend / Resume works. Hibernate works with editing configuration.

To fix hibernation, create file in /etc/pm/config.d containing 

HIBERNATE_MODE="shutdown"

Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10584171&postcount=124

Webcam

Works out of the box. Tested with cheese

Microphone

The internal microphone works out of the box with the latest ALSA drivers. Be sure to unmute it with the sound mixer before use.

Fn Buttons

  • Mute - Works
  • Volume - up/down work
  • Mic - Requires configuration edit
  • Sleep - Works, suspends and resumes properly
  • Wireless toggle - works
  • Camera / headset - Unknown, will take a picture if cheese is open
  • Display switcher - Untested
  • Touchpad toggle - Works
  • Prev track - Works. Mapped to Amarok by default in Kubuntu
  • Play / pause - Works. Mapped to Amarok by default in Kubuntu
  • Next track - Works. Mapped to Amarok by default in Kubuntu
  • Hibernate - Sends command to hibernate, but hibernate does not work

  • PrtScr - Works, captures a screenshot

  • Brightness down - Works
  • Brightness up - Works
  • Battery - Works, displays power information, remaining power

TrackPoint

Install gpointing-device-settings to set up TrackPoint scrolling and buttons

Applications

  • Skype - Works with default installation through Software Center (including 64 bit)

10.10 Maverick Meerkat

Wireless

The stock B/G/N wireless card does not work out of the box for Maverick. This requires compilation of the Realtek RTL8192SE driver:

  1. Download the RTL8192SE Unix driver from this page.

  2. Open a Terminal and extract the driver source: 

    tar -xvzf NAME_OF_DRIVER_FILE.tar.gz
cd NAME_OF_DRIVER_FILE
    Where NAME_OF_DRIVER_FILE is the name of the file you downloaded in step 1.

  3. Compile Driver: 

    sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`
make
sudo make install
    At this point, the driver is installed and will load automatically at boot time.
  4. Reboot.

    1. Alternatively, you can load the driver from the command line without rebooting:

      sudo stop network-manager
sudo modprobe rtl8192ce_pci
sudo ip link set wlan0 up
sudo start network-manager

    2. If you are having trouble with Network Manager, you may configure wireless from a terminal:

      sudo ip link set wlan0 up
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid NETWORK key KEY
sudo dhclient wlan0
      Where NETWORK is the name of your router and KEY is a 40-bit hex key (if you don't use wep, you can omit this option).

Video

By default, Maverick uses an old version of the open-source Radeon driver that does not have proper support for the AMD-E series APU.

If you want full support for 3D graphics and 2D video acceleration, you will have to use the official AMD catalyst driver. Install the latest version from the AMD website (or any version after 11.2) as per the instructions at BinaryDriverHowto/ATI. Do not install the version in the Maverick repositories with the Additional Drivers Manager, it will not work properly.

Additional Utilities

thinkfan

thinkfan can be installed to control the fan speeds. TODO: list working fan profiles and installation instructions here.

gpointing-device-settings

Allows setting up the TrackPoint and TouchPad

External Links

CategoryWireless

X120e (last edited 2011-11-17 07:39:21 by Dyn143053)