Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme (Gen 2)

Device	Status	Modules
Intel UHD 630 Graphics	Working	i915
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650	Working	nvidia
Intel AX200 Wifi	Working	iwlwifi
Intel HDA	Working	snd_hda_intel
Synaptics touchpad	Working	libinput
Chicony Electronics	Working	uvcvideo
Card reader	Working	xhci_hcd
Intel AX200 Bluetooth	Working	btusb
Intel Thunderbolt	Working	thunderbolt
Synaptics fingerprint reader	Initial Support Complete

The Thinkpad X1E Gen 2 is a thin-and-light 15.6" workstation/multimedia laptop from Lenovo's 2019 ThinkPad X lineup.

This page specifically concerns the specifics of running Arch Linux on this laptop. See Laptop for generic laptop-related information, or ThinkPad for other ThinkPad laptops.

Hardware

Thunderbolt 3

To use Thunderbolt 3, ensure you are on the latest BIOS firmware (doing the following steps on older BIOSes may brick your device):

1. Go into BIOS

2. Enable BIOS Assist mode: (Thunderbolt 3 -> Enable BIOS assist mode) *Ensure you're on the latest BIOS!*

Battery

Invalid stats workaround

As of writing, a bug exists where the battery data can appear corrupt, wildly incorrect, or seem to change drastically from boot to boot. To workaround this bug you should add battery to the /etc/mkinitcpio.conf.

MODULES=(battery)

Remember to regenerate the initramfs for these changes to take effect.

Note: You can also build the battery module into your kernel.

Battery life and graphics

bbswitch does not work on this laptop to disable the NVIDIA card when not in use. To disable the NVIDIA card you can run:

# tee /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:01\:00.1/remove <<<1
# tee /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:01\:00.0/remove <<<1

Note: It may be much easier to just use optimus manager with the necessary power options described in #Graphics

Graphics

Nouveau

Currently (5.2.9-arch1), the Nouveau driver can cause quite a lot of kernel panics when using the webcamera. You should blacklist this driver to prevent it from being loaded.

NVIDIA

Prime features

The NVIDIA driver now supports PRIME Offloading. Following this guide you can try out this new mode. However, external display ports will not work with only this method.

Power Management

To get the best power options the graphics card may be configured to use low power mode by following the guide here

Optimus manager

Currently, one of the easiest solutions for this laptop is to use optimus-manager with the hybrid backend. This requires the most up to date nvidia and xorg-server packages.

This allows easy switching between the PRIME offloading feature above, and a mode where external display ports (HDMI and USB-C) work.

Steps to setup after a fresh install:

install nvidia proprietary driver 'prime', not bumblebee. (in manjaro use automatic Hardware Detection in Manjaro Settings Manager)
reboot
install optimus-manager^AUR
reboot
`optimus-manager --switch nvidia` # this will restart your X session, but not make the change persistent
`lspci -k | grep -A 2 -E "(VGA|3D)"` should say: Kernel driver in use: nvidia
`xrandr` should list HDMI output - try to configure screen, should work
`nvidia-settings` should work
`optimus-manager --set-startup nvidia` makes it persistent
check: reboot, external display should still work

OLED Display

Brightness control

OLED screens have no backlight, brightness cannot be controlled by changing backlight power in the traditional way. Instead, it can be controlled using PWM by enabling following option:

echo "options i915 enable_dpcd_backlight=1" >> /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf

Alternatively, you can add a kernel parameter. For example, if you are using GRUB, edit /etc/default/grub with

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="i915.enable_dpcd_backlight=1"

Don't forget to update the grub configuration to apply the changes.

Note: As of January 2020, setting the brightness is not flawless due to this bug. Nevertheless, you still have some control.

Audio

Audio pop on shutdown and startup

To work around the loud audio artifacts on startup/shutdown follow the guide for enabling the audio powersave: Power management#Audio.

Fingerprint

The 2.0 version of fprint supports this device after a firmware update.

To get fingerprint working right now:

Note: The Firmware for this is still in the testing phase at LVFS. Proceed with caution.

Install the following packages available on the AUR :

libfprint-git^AUR
fprintd-libfprint2^AUR

And setup fwupd

The firmware updates currently require the newest version of fwupd and you must manually download the updates:

using the latest version of the fwupd tool you should be able to run:

fwupdmgr get-devices

and see a "Prometheus" device in the list.

Install the firmware by running

fwupdmgr install *.cab

on each downloaded .cab file

Note: At this point, a reboot may be required

You should then be able to enroll your fingerprints with Fprint#Configuration

Note: For some reason, the fprint.service can take some time to start. if fprint reports no devices, wait until fprint.service has completely stopped (it should become inactive in systemctl) To fix this, reset the fingerprint data in your bios settings

Card reader

The optional card reader that the Lenovo can install in your laptop is a Alcor Micro AU9560. There are some tools you can use to test your card reader.

Installation

Install ccid and opensc from official repositories. Then, Start and enable pcscd.socket.

pacman -S ccid opensc
 
systemctl enable pcscd
systemctl start pcscd

Testing

First, verify that your card reader can be found by pcsc:

opensc-tool --list-readers

Now, insert a smart card and run the following to verify that pcsc is able to read your card:

pcsc_scan

Webcam

The webcam in this laptop is capable of "Windows Hello" which has a Linux version called Howdy. The device you should use to configure howdy on this laptop is /dev/video0.

Keyboard

Backlight

If you would like to enable the keyboard backlight, run:

echo 2 | tee /sys/class/leds/tpacpi::kbd_backlight/brightness

The "2" represents the brightness and can be any value between 0 and 2 (inclusive) for the laptop. For example, to turn off the keyboard backlight, you would run:

echo 0 | tee /sys/class/leds/tpacpi::kbd_backlight/brightness

Touchpad

The touchpad works out-of-the-box with libinput. However, it will be very insensitive. Make sure to not install xf86-input-synaptics - this driver is deprecated, lacks all features mentioned below, but is still installed by default with the xorg-drivers group.

Acceleration

You can adjust acceleration using the command:

xinput set-prop 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' 'libinput Accel Speed' 0.5

Two-Finger Right Click

Additionally, if you wish to disable right-clicking so that you use two finger click as your right click, run:

xinput set-prop 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' 'libinput Click Method Enabled' 0 1

Tap Clicking

If you would like for a tap on the touchpad to be registered as a click, use:

xinput set-prop 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' 'libinput Tapping Enabled' 1

Firmware

BIOS and firmware updates are available via fwupd, the Lenovo Vantage application on Windows, or from Lenovo's website.

The latest BIOS version, v1.29, is highly recommended. All information on this page generally assumes the latest BIOS unless explicitly stated.

Note: to install Arch Linux you need to disable Secure Boot. If you cannot do so (e.g. because of `error: failed to save storage - write protected`), it may help to reset the BIOS to factory defaults (F9), and/or upgrade your BIOS.

Software

Throttling fix

You will see a dmesg error that talks about CPU throttling.

There are a few ways to fix this. You should only use one of the following as they both attempt to undervolt.

Trottled

To fix this install throttled, then run

systemctl enable --now lenovo_fix.service

CPU undervolting

Undervolting the CPU/Intel GPU works well with intel-undervolt.