Lenovo ThinkPad T530

Base System

• You can follow the Beginners' Guide for this
  • Basically everything that is there is what is needed, I will expand on the extra configs and weird tweaks that may be needed.
  • Go up to not through the GUI configurations, since we may be changing some things.

Sound

Note: With linux 3.11.x, this seems not to be necessary any more.

Note: As of linux 3.6.x, auto-mute may have to be disabled for working sound.

Temporary Fix Options:

1. launch the Alsa Mixer CLI interface (in the terminal just type alsamixer) and then hit "F6". Select HDA Intel PCH and scroll over to "Auto-Mute" and hit the down arrow.
2. Just enter this in the terminal /usr/bin/amixer -c 0 sset "Auto-Mute Mode" Disabled

Permanent Fix Options:

1. Make the above command (/usr/bin/amixer -c 0 sset "Auto-Mute Mode" Disabled) launch at login.
   • Gnome/Cinnamon: Alt+F2, gnome-session-properties, add the command and title/describe it as you wish)
   • Mate: Follow "Gnome/Cinnamon" with "mate-session-properties" instead.
   • Openbox: Add the command to the ~/.openbox/autorun file.

Internal speakers and headphones (including optional auto-mute and DisplayPort audio) work out-of-the-box.

GUI (X)

You should install the xorg-server xorg-xinit and xorg-server-utils packages.

Also, I am going to assume that you have the same set-up as me so you'll need to do the following items.

I was in process of configuring Bumblebee, but after trying it both ways on my T530 - I don't really see a huge gain for the pain. So I dropped it. In my specific case, if I really need the extension to the battery life, you can just turn off the Dedicated card in the BIOS.

Intel HD 4000

You will need to install the xf86-video-intel package.

# pacman -S xf86-video-intel

Backlight Control

If backlight control does not work properly (eg in KDE), check /sys/class/backlight:

# ls /sys/class/backlight/

acpi_video0 intel_backlight

If the output looks similar to the above (ie more than one backlight device), your Desktop Environment might choose the wrong device for backlight control.

You can try creating a configuration file for Xorg specifying the device to use. Create the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf with the following contents:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

Section "Device" 
        Identifier      "HD 4000" 
        Driver  "Intel" 
        Option "Backlight" "intel_backlight" 
EndSection

This tells Xorg to use intel_backlight for controlling backlight. After a reboot, you should be able to control the backlight and get OSD notifications about it (KDE).

NVIDIA NVS 5400M

Now you have a few options as far as what driver to use.

Arch recommends the xf86-video-nouveau driver, which is Open Source. However, while it has fast 2D, it only has basic 3D support and does not fully support power saving at this point.

# pacman -S xf86-video-nouveau

The other option is the nvidia package, which supports 3D and provides power saving. That being said, however, it will take some configuration to get it right. See the nvidia page for config.

Probably a waste, but I disabled this card in the BIOS for when I don't use it. Took battery from ~2hrs to ~4.5hrs

Input

TrackPoint

You need to add a new XORG Config file to handle the TrackPoint events (mostly the Middle Button handling horizontal and vertical scrolling, the MiddleClick works by default).

Create /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-trackpoint.conf with these contents:

   # vim /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-trackpoint.conf


   Section "InputClass"
       Identifier      "Trackpoint Wheel Emulation"
       MatchProduct    "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint|DualPoint Stick|Synaptics Inc. Composite TouchPad / TrackPoint|ThinkPad USB Keyboard with TrackPoint|USB Trackpoint pointing device"
       MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
       Option          "EmulateWheel"          "true"
       Option          "EmulateWheelButton"    "2"
       Option          "Emulate3Buttons"       "false"
       Option          "XAxisMapping"          "6 7"
       Option          "YAxisMapping"          "4 5"
   EndSection

Once you reboot - you should be good-to-go with both vertical and horizontal scrolling while holding the middle TrackPoint button.

Hotkeys (Media Keys)

Media keys that work out of the box:

• Wireless On/Off
• Backlight Brightness (If you use the nVidia driver, configuration will be needed - documented on the Nvidia wiki page)
• Thinklight / Keyboard Backlighting
• Sleep

Keys that do not work out of the box, depending on your DE (you can bind them):

• Mute
• Vol+/-
• Prev/PlayPause/Next
• Lock
• Mic Mute (doesn't even register on my keymapper)
• Fn+F7 - Display Toggle (Projector?)
• Fn+F6 - WebCam Toggle
• Launcher (right of the Mic Mute)

Keybindings

Install the xbindkeys packages from the community repo. To run xbindkeys, it will want you to have a .xbindkeysrc file and will offer the default. Personally, I think the default options are terrible for a US layout (example: Rebinding Ctrl-F to not be find). So I just make my own to make it to my liking.

Here are the main ones, just open your preferred file editor and save the following as ~/.xbindkeysrc:

# Volume Controls
"amixer set Master 5%+"
   XF86AudioRaiseVolume
"amixer set Master 5%-"
   XF86AudioLowerVolume
"amixer set Master toggle"
   XF86AudioMute
# Lock (Fn+F3)
"gnome-screensaver-command -l"
   XF86ScreenSaver
# I use banshee for my audio
"banshee --next"
   XF86AudioNext
"banshee --restart-or-prev"
   XF86AudioPrev
"banshee --toggle-playing"
   XF86AudioPlay
# Launcher (right of the Mic Mute)
"action"
   XF86Launch1

Be sure to set xbindkeys to run at startup, and any time you edit the file you need to restart the process. In Gnome/Cinnamon hit Alt+F2 and type "gnome-session-properties" and hit enter. Click "Add" and type in xbindkeys for the command. You can call it and describe it however you want.

If I get time, I plan to make a script that will change the program the PlayPause/Prev/Next control. This will just do banshee in my example, but I would like to expand that to control VLC if it is open and banshee is not.

Networking

Both the Ethernet and wireless are supported by Arch out of the box. All the available Intel wireless cards are very well supported, including good powersaving. The Lenovo branded (Realtek) card does not work as well and does not support powersaving on Linux.

Thinkpad Specific Modules

While many of the system resources will be realized by the system, you may want to add the thinkpad_acpi module to boot.

  sudo echo thinkpad_acpi > /etc/modules-load.d/thinkpad.conf

This will let you check fan speeds and such with

  cat /proc/acpi/ibm/fan

See also

• Technical specifications