Arch on the Thinkpad X230

x230-arch.md

Arch Linux 2019.02.01-x86_64 on the Thinkpad X230

Documenting all my install steps

Useful Links

• https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/37uoya/easiest_way_to_move_complete_linux_install_from/
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X230
• http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:X230
• https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1393759#p1393759
• https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/understanding-systemd-units-and-unit-files
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/windelicato/dotfiles/master/why_bspwm.gif

Live USB Boot using UEFI

• Kernel boots fine from either USB port, but for some reason, the filesystem is not mounted if the left side USB port is used
• Set boot mode to UEFI Only to boot in UEFI mode, double check with ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

Install

Wireless Networking

• Stop dhcp on the wired network, we will use wireless:

  systemctl stop dhcpcd@enp0s25.service
  

  Interface name autocompletes with tab
• Check driver is properly loaded

  lspci -k | grep wifi
  

• Identify the wireless interface

  ip link
  

• Bring the interface up

  ip link set wlp3s0 up
  ip link | grep UP
  

• Create a new wpa_supplicant configuration file ready to use with wpa_cli:

  echo "ctrl_interface=/run/wpa_supplicant" > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
  echo "update_config=1" >> /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
  

• Launch wpa_supplicant: wpa_supplicant -B -i wlp3s0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
• Configure wpa_supplicant with wpa_cli:

  scan
  scan_results
  add_network
  set_network 0 ssid "MYSSID"
  set_network 0 psk "passphrase"
  enable_network 0
  save_config
  

• Obtain an IP address

  dhcpcd wlp3s0
  ping archlinux.org
  

System Preparation

• Update the system clock

  timedatectl set-ntp true
  timedatectl status
  

• Partinioning the disk The bellow partition scheme was used on the default 128G SDD

  gdisk /dev/sda
  o
  n default +512M EF00
  n default +118G 8300
  n default default 8200
  c 1 EFI
  c 2 ROOT
  c 3 SWAP
  w
  

• Create FileSystems

  mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sda1
  mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda2
  mkswap /dev/sda3
  swapon /dev/sda3
  

• Mount FileSystems

  mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
  mkdir /mnt/boot
  mount /dev/sda1 /boot
  

• Install Base Software

  pacstrap /mnt base
  

• Generate fstab

  genfstab -U /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
  

• Change root

  arch-chroot /mnt
  

• Set timezone, locales, keyboard and fonts

  ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Europe/Lisbon /etc/localtime
  vi /etc/locale.gen (uncomment en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 and en_US ISO-8859-1)
  locale-gen
  echo "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" > /etc/locale.conf
  loadkeys us-acentos
  echo "KEYMAP=us-acentos" > /etc/vconsole.conf
  setfont eurlatgr
  echo "FONT=eurlatgr" >> /etc/vconsole.conf
  

• Set the root password

  passwd
  

Network Configuration

• Set the hostname

  echo x230 > /etc/hostname
  echo "127.0.0.1    localhost x230 x230.localdomain" >> /etc/hosts
  echo "::1    localhost x230 x230.localdomain" >> /etc/hosts
  

• Configure /etc/systemd/network/25-wired.network

  [Match]
  Name=enp0s25
  
  [Network]
  DHCP=ipv4
  
  [DHCP]
  RouteMetric=10
  

• Configure /etc/systemd/network/25-wireless.network

  [Match]
  Name=wlp3s0
  
  [Network]
  DHCP=ipv4
  
  [DHCP]
  RouteMetric=20
  

• Configure wpa_supplicant

  pacman -S wpa_supplicant
  wpa_passphrase SSID PASSWORD > /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlp3s0.conf
  systemctl enable wpa_supplicant@wlp3s0
  systemctl enable systemd-networkd.service
  

• Configure systemd-resolved Edit /etc/systemd/resolved.conf:

  FallbackDNS=4.2.2.1 1.1.1.1 8.8.8.8 9.9.9.10
  DNSSEC=allow-downgrade
  Cache=yes
  DNSStubListener=true
  ReadEtcHosts=yes
  

  Enable systemd-resolved name resolution:

  systemctl enable systemd-resolved
  

  A soft link is required for systemd-resolved to perform name resolution, if not possible at this point perform this action latter.

  ln -sf /run/systemd/resolve/stub-resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf
  

Boot Loader

• Install packages

  pacman -S grub efibootmgr intel-ucode
  grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=GRUB
  grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  

• Exit chroot and reboot

System Configuration

Unprivileged User

useradd -m ferrao -G wheel
pacman -S sudo
visudo 
%wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL
passwd ferrao

Console Typematic Rate

• Add to /etc/systemd/system/kbdrate.service:

[Unit]
Description = Keyboard repeat rate in tty.

[Service]
Type = oneshot
RemainAfterExit = yes
StandardInput = tty
StandardOutput = tty
ExecStart = /usr/bin/kbdrate -s -d 200 -r 60
 
[Install]
WantedBy = multi-user.target

Install AUR

pacman -S --needed base-devel
pacman -S vim git
su - ferrao
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/aur.git
cd aurutils
makepkg -si
cd ..

Aur packages can be fetched with aur fetch <package> and installed with makepkg -si

Configure Power Management

sudo pacman -S acpid acpi lm_sensors
sudo systemctl enable acpid
sudo sh -c 'echo "options snd_hda_intel power_save=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/audio_powersave.conf'

TODO: laptop-mode-tools

Configure Fan Control

aur fetch thinkfan
cd thinkfan
makepkg -si
sudo sh -c 'echo "START=yes" > /etc/default/thinkfan'
sudo sh -c 'echo "options thinkpad_acpi experimental=1 fan_control=1" > /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad-acpi.conf' 
sudo cp /usr/share/doc/thinkfan/examples/thinkfan.conf.simple /etc/thinkfan.conf

Edit /etc/thinkfan.conf:

tp_fan /proc/acpi/ibm/fan
hwmon /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp

(0,     0,      42)
(1,     40,     47)
(2,     45,     52)
(3,     50,     57)
(4,     55,     62)
(5,     60,     72)
(6,     65,     77)
(7,     70,     80)
(127,   75,     32767)

Enable fan control:

sudo systemctl enable thinkfan
systemctl status thinkfan

Requires reloading all acpi and thinkpad related modules to get thinkfan working properly, should be ok at next reboot.

Configure LCD Panel Light Controls

• Edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and make sure we have:

MODULES=(i915)

• Edit /etc/default/grub and set the following line:

  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_backlight=video acpi_osi=\"!Windows 2012\""
  

Boot Splash

• Fetch and install plymouth

aur fetch plymouth plymouth-theme-dark-arch

Edit /etc/plymouth/plymouth.conf:

Theme=dark-arch
ShowDelay=1

Add plymouth to HOOKS after base udev on /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and rebuild ram image and boot loader:

sudo mkinitcpio -p linux
sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
sudo reboot

Install Usefull Software

sudo pacman -S openssh dnsutils tcpdump lynx i7z neofetch htop lsof udisk2 bc mlocate

Alias

For some reason the halt command does not shutdow the machine, shutdown command is required

alias reboot="sudo reboot"
alias halt="sudo shutdown -h now" 

GUI Configuration

Xorg

• Uncomment the multilib repo in /etc/pacman.conf
• Install the xorg server

sudo pacman -S xorg xorg-xinit xf86-video-intel xf86-video-fbdev mesa mesa-demos lib32-mesa vulkan-intel libva-intel-driver xterm xorg-xclock xorg-twm xbindkeys ttf-liberation ttf-ubuntu-font-family ttf-fira-mono ttf-freefont adobe-source-code-pro-fonts ttf-freefont adobe-source-sans-pro-fonts ttf-linux-libertine xorg-fonts-type1 xorg-fonts-misc ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-dejavu bdf-unifont ttf-font-awesome libxcb xcb-util xcb-util-keysysm xcb-util-wm upower notification-daemon udiskie xdotool

• Edit /etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc and start the server with:

exec /usr/bin/X -dpi 125.37 -nolisten tcp "$@"

• Let Xorg start as root, required for xf86-video-fbdev:

sudo sh -c 'echo "needs_root_rights = yes" > /etc/X11/Xwrapper.conf'

• Configure automont by adding to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc:

udiskie &

Keyboard

• Configure the X typematic rate by adding to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc:

xset r rate 200 60

• Configure the keyboard by adding /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/00-keyboard.conf:

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier "system-keyboard"
        MatchIsKeyboard "on"
        Option "XkbLayout" "us"
        Option "XkbVariant" "altgr-intl"
EndSection

Sound

• Instal alsa utils

sudo pacman -S alsa-utils alsa-plugins alsa-firmware

• Map X events to alsa commands on ~/.xbindkeysrc:

# ALSA
"amixer set Master toggle"
  XF86AudioMute

"amixer set Master 5%-"
  XF86AudioLowerVolume

"amixer set Master 5%+"
  XF86AudioRaiseVolume

• Execute xbindkeys on /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc before any window manager

TrackPoint

• Configure Trackpoint with libinput and xorg by setting /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-trackpoint.conf

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "trackpoint"
    Driver "libinput"
    MatchProduct "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint"
    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"

    Option "NaturalScrolling" "false"

    # adaptive or flat 
    Option "AccelProfile" "adaptive"

    # float between -1 and 1
    Option "AccelSpeed" "0.5"
EndSection

Dual Head

pacman -S arandr

BSPWM Window Manager

• Fetch and install required packages

sudo pacman -S bspwm sxhkd polybar kitty rofi dunst libnotify feh compton gtk3 gtk2 qt5-base qt4 arc-gtk-theme arc-icon-theme gtk-engine-murrine ranger xdg-utils atool

• Add compton -Cb to /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
• Execute the bspwm binary on /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
• Copy configuration files

mkdir ~/.config
mkdir ~/.config/bspwm
mkdir ~/.config/sxhkd
cp /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/bspwmrc ~/.config/bspwm
cp /usr/share/doc/bspwm/examples/sxhkdrc ~/.config/sxhkd
ranger --copy-config=all

Hi @ferrao, thanks for putting this together. I've been referencing as I go through the Arch wiki install page (as I have an x230 as well) and it's quite helpful. I believe you may have a typo when mounting the boot partition: 'mount /dev/sda1 /boot' should be 'mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot' because you have not changed to the new root directory yet. Please let me know if I'm misunderstanding something. Also you have close quotation marks after the output files in your echo statements when configuring wpa_supplicant.

Hi @betanot, I'm glad my gist was useful to you. I just wrote it down at the same time I was setting up my system, which was quite some time ago, so not sure about the boot partition thing, but what you are saying makes sense.

Regarding the extra quotation marks, I have removed those, thank you for your suggestions and I hope you enjoy your x230 as much as I do, I also have a repo containing all my config files, feel free to have a look here

@ferrao, in the end, I was not able to make it work with GRUB, so I switched over to systemd-boot, but now I have a working system! I kept a list of my commands as you did and I will most likely forget about it and someone will shoot me a github message in a few months noting some typeos ;). I'll definitely take a look at your config files. Thanks again for sharing this!