Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme (Gen 2)

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• Laptop/Lenovo

Thunderbolt

To use Thunderbolt 3, go into BIOS and enable BIOS Assist mode (Thunderbolt 3 -> Enable BIOS assist mode)

Power management

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 .

MODULES=(battery)

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

Video

As of Linux 5.2.9, the Nouveau driver can cause quite a lot of kernel panics when using the webcamera.

Brightness control

OLED Display

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"

Do not forget to update the grub configuration to apply the changes.

Brightness control is not yet supported by standard tools. You can try this one

LCD Display

Hybrid Graphics

Hybrid Graphics (also known as Nvidia Optimus) Allows the system to use the integrated Intel graphics and the Nvidia GPU interchangeably without rebooting.

Brightness control under Hybrid Graphics should work "out of the box" with no kernel command line options necessary. If you notice brightness controls cease working, check that your BIOS settings are still for "Hybrid Graphics" and not "Discrete Graphics".

Discrete Graphics

Discrete graphics means only the Nvidia GPU is available to the system.

Currently brightness control does not work with "Discrete Graphics" selected in BIOS.

Keyboard

There is an issue with keystrokes being skipped at times (see the Lenovo forums). This is resolved with system firmware version 1.30. See Firmware to check your current version and upgrade.

Touchpad

If you are having issues with trackpad functionality not working after a sleep and resume, like non-smooth tracking or tap clicking not registering, you can switch back to the older communication protocol:

echo "options psmouse synaptics_intertouch=0" > /etc/modprobe.d/trackpad.conf

More details on what this does are here

Wireless

If your WiFi card is occasionally not detected after reboots, this may be related to a known bug that is related to windows fastboot. Workarounds are to completely shutdown the machine (no suspend or reboot), on next boot it works for me. Alternatives suggested are to first boot into windows, and/or disable windows fastboot in the bios.

References:

Ethernet

If you have issues with a gigabit connection being capped at 100 MB/s and you are using the e1000e driver, try adding pcie_aspm=off to the kernel boot parameters.

Additionally, run the following to get a more slight network performance improvement:

ethtool -s <INTERFACE> autoneg on speed 1000 duplex full

References:

Firmware

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

The latest BIOS version is highly recommended. All information on this page should assume the latest BIOS unless explicitly stated otherwise.

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.

Check BIOS version

From Lenovo's firmware readme, to check the system's installed BIOS version:

Alternatively, use fwupdmgr from fwupd without rebooting:

Disabling Absolute Persistence

Lenovo offers two BIOS versions with their releases; Absolute Persistence and Non-absolute Persistence. Absolute Home & Office (originally known as CompuTrace, and LoJack for Laptops) is a proprietary laptop theft recovery software (laptop tracking software) with features including the abilities to remotely lock, delete files from, and locate the stolen laptop on a map. More information about its functionality and vulnerabilities can be read here

If you do not subscribe to this service and have no use for it, you can flash an alternate BIOS provided by Lenovo listed as "Non-Absolute Persistence". The BIOS versions are identified by their letter at the end of the .cab file. Versions ending in W include Absolute's features and versions ending in P remove it. The Non-Absolute version is included in the zip file containing BIOS updates from Lenovo's website or you can directly download it from fwupd.org.

To install the Non-Absolute Persistence BIOS, you must first permanently disable Computrace in the BIOS. Once done, you can flash the Non-Absolute Persistence (P version) with the same instructions.

Flashing BIOS

Updating

Download the zip file labelled "BIOS Update Utility (Linux)" from Lenovo's support website or fwupd.org directly. Extract the zip file, then use fwupd to update the firmware:

$ su # fwupdmgr install <filename>.cab

Then reboot immediately to finish the upgrade.

Reverting to previous versions

To downgrade your bios, you can use the --allow-older flag with fwupd.