Lenovo Thinkpad W530

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The Lenovo Thinkpad W530 and its associated hardware components can (potentially) be difficult to configure properly in Gentoo. This article has been written as a configuration guide to help users work out some of the gritty details needed to get this notebook working as it should on Gentoo Linux.

Note
Do not expect to have exactly the same hardware listed in this guide in your W530. The hardware listed here is to be used as an example. Some of the components may be similar, but there are always variants in computers depending on what hardware was purchased. See the ThinkWiki.org link in the External resources section for a review of possible factory hardware setups.

Installation

Preparation

Adequate preparation should be established for the case something should go wrong in the middle of installing Gentoo. The following list does not only apply to the current hardware list in this article; it generally applies to whenever attempting to install Linux on any machine:

Backups
If the computer owner finds any value in being able to restore the existing factory operating system, make sure appropriate measures are taken to create a full system restoration before starting to install Linux. This is a nice fall back option in the case something goes terribly and unexpectedly wrong.
Time
Allot enough time for installing Gentoo. The length of the install process varies. Experienced Gentoo users are mostly limited by the speed of their current hardware setups, beginners are limited by the Gentoo learning curve (which can be a steep climb).
Diligence
Sometimes diligence is required in order to configure all parts of the hardware to properly. Unfortunately most manufacturers do not deliver open source drivers for their hardware. Linux users can go through great lengths in order to build or find open drivers that are compatible with the on their particular machine hardware. Depending on the machine, configuration could take the majority of the time. Thankfully Linux has become much more capable and, with the right knowledge, can actually be installed on more processor architectures than any other operating system. In this case user knowledge is the limiting factor.

Hardware

Important
As stated above, the hardware listed in the following commands might not match the hardware in your laptop verbatim. Use the following hardware information as reference guide.

lspci

root #lspci -nnk

lsusb

root #lsusb

Configuration

Intel graphics

Configure the integrated graphics card:

KERNEL 
Device drivers -->
   Graphics support -->
      <*> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support) --->
         <*> Enable legacy fbdev support for your modesetting driver
      <*> Intel 8xx/9xx/G3x/G4x/HD Graphics

Set the VIDEO_CARDS variable in /etc/portage/package.use:

FILE /etc/portage/package.use/00video
*/* VIDEO_CARDS: -* intel

Finally, when rebooting the system, press F12, then Tab, then scroll down three lines to enter the motherboard's firmware. Scroll over the right one frame, then choose Display. Select Integrated graphics mode and disable Operating System detection for Optimus.

Nouveau and Intel graphics

KERNEL 
Device drivers -->
   Graphics support -->
      <*> Direct Rendering Manager (XFree86 4.1.0 and higher DRI support) --->
         <*> Enable legacy fbdev support for your modesetting driver
      <*> Nouveau (NVIDIA) cards
      <*> Intel 8xx/9xx/G3x/G4x/HD Graphics

When using both Intel and nouveau drivers, simply add both values to the VIDEO_CARDS variable and update the @world set:

FILE /etc/portage/package.use/00video=bash
*/* VIDEO_CARDS:  intel nvidia
root #emerge --ask --update --deep --newuse @world

NVidia Optimus graphics

Use Hybrid_graphics

Finally, enter the motherboard's firmware and select Discrete graphics mode and disable Operating System detection for Optimus.

USB

The Wiki's USB guide can be helpful for configuring anything USB related on the system.

Microphone

The USB Audio kernel driver must be enabled for the USB microphones to work properly. This is the case for most laptops since their microphones are connected on the USB bus.

KERNEL Enable support for SND_USB_AUDIO
Device Drivers -->
   Sound card support -->
      Advanced Linux Sound Architecture -->
         USB sound devices -->
            <*> USB Audio/MIDI driver

Power management

If the default USB power saving features are bothersome they can disabled by adding a configuration file to /etc/modprobe.d/

FILE /etc/modprobe.d/usb_auto_suspend_disable.conf
#This example disables USB power saving altogether
options usbcore autosuspend=-1

For more information visit Kernel.org's USB Power Management page.

Tips

Become familiar with helpful tools

Many software tools and hardware detection utilities are available in order to help troubleshoot a new Gentoo installation. Users who are new to Gentoo have many options to choose from. Quite a few of the packages available in the Portage tree are utilities available on other Linux distributions.

See also

  • Portage TMPDIR on tmpfs - Instructions on how to build packages entirely in memory (RAM). This is useful for preserving read/write operations to a disk.
  • Gentoo Cheat Sheet - A reference article for basic package management, USE flags, log file, and administration management.

External resources

Retrieved from "https://wiki.gentoo.org/index.php?title=Lenovo_Thinkpad_W530&oldid=1324366"