Lenovo ThinkPad S440
This article was written to assist you with getting archlinux run on the Lenovo ThinkPad S440.
Prerequisites
Creating an installation medium
To create a bootable USB-Stick with the archlinux*.iso you downloaded, simply:
dd bs=4M if=archlinux*.iso of=/dev/sdX && sync
which will/should behave like a regular bootable CD-Rom in addition to a capable BIOS and the correct bootsequence! In doubt or in case of problems see Install from a USB flash drive for more detailed instructions.
Enable Legacy Boot
On boot press F12 to enter the BIOS menu and choose your USB-Stick to boot from. If you like, you can disable UEFI boot completely in the BIOS settings too.
Installation
After that it is recommended to follow the usual installation procedure described in the Installation guide.
LAN
Works out of the box with module r8169
.
If you use Lenovo's Thinkpad OneLink Dock you need asix-ax88179-dkmsAUR for it's ThinkPad OneLink GigaLAN adapter. The module ax88179_178a
delivered with the stock kernel doesn't work.
WLAN
Works out of the box with module iwlwifi
.
Audio
Works out of the box with module snd-hda-intel
.
Video
The S440 comes with ati intel hybrid graphics.
Currently the best implementation for i915
/ fglrx
hybrids is found in the unofficial catalyst repository.
You can switch between the two drivers with on of the following commands:
# intel aticonfig --px-igpu
# ati aticonfig --px-dgpu
If you encounter tearing in video playback when using Intel graphics (some S440 variants come without dedicated ATI chip), try enabling the Intel drivers' "TearFree" option[broken link: invalid section].
Touchpad
A synaptics touchpad with two-finger scrolling. Install xf86-input-synaptics to get it running with multi-touch gestures.
Frequency scaling
Work well with cpupower as described in CPU Frequency Scaling. Be aware, that the ondemand
governer doesn't work with i7 4500M atm. I choose powersave
as default.
Webcam
Works out of the box with uvcvideo
.
Keyboard backlight
Currently the thinkpad_acpi
module does not support to turn the keyboard backlight on. But you can turn it off with:
echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/leds/tpacpi::thinklight/brightness
Suspend
Works flawlessly with with pm-utilsAUR or any DE integration. If resuming from suspend works once but not a second time, try disabling Intel's Anti-Theft module in BIOS (see this kernel bug report).
Power consumption
With cpupower, laptop-mode-toolsAUR and acpid installed and graphics switched to intel gpu, I get over 9 hours battery life.