Lenovo ThinkPad X201
The X201 is a 4-core subnotebook produced by Lenovo. See Thinkwiki for more information.
Arch installs and runs flawlessly. Some specials features need tweaks, though.
Contents
Graphics
Xorg should automatically load the intel driver without any configuration. Have a look at Intel if something is wrong.
As of the first quarter of 2013 there seems to be an issue related to Mesa 9.0, described at the freekdesktop Bugtracker (#59593), that makes the integrated Intel Ironlake Mobile GPU crash and will only resolve after a reboot.
Hibernation
Install pm-utils and uswsusp and configure it as pm-util's backend. See Pm-utils#Using_another_sleep_back-end_.28like_uswsusp.29 for instructions.
Fbsplash
To make fbsplash work, i915 has to be added to the modules array in mkinitcpio.conf:
/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
MODULES="i915"
Power Saving
Fan control
There are some discussions concerning overheating-related shutdowns when running under full load (video encoding, etc) ([1] [2]).
Thinkpad Fan Control contains instructions to install tpfand as a custom replacement for hardware (bios-) fan control.
Start tpfan-admin and adjust the settings (by clicking on the sensor's graph). You should split the graph (via context menu) and set the fan to full-speed when the sensor reaches, say, 65 °C. You may also edit the config file directly.
TLP
You may install TLP instead of Laptop Mode Tools to automate power saving operations.
Frequency Scaling
Use cpufrequtils to enable frequency scaling.
Undervolting
Undervolting is not possible with the intel core iX cpu.
Bootloader kernel options
Add these kernel options to your bootloader's config file to make use of power saving mechanismens which are turned off by default because of reported instabilities. For me, they do a great job on my X201.
grub2
/etc/default/grub
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="[...] i915_enable_rc6=1 i915_enable_fbc=1"
Update grub.cfg afterwards: grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
grub1
Add the options above to /boot/grub/menu.lst.