Device Status Modules Intel UHD 630 Graphics Working i915 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Working nvidia Intel AX200 Wifi Working iwlwifi Intel HDA Working snd_hda_intel Synaptics touchpad Working libinput Chicony Electronics Working uvcvideo Card reader Working xhci_hcd Intel AX200 Bluetooth Working btusb Intel Thunderbolt Working thunderbolt Synaptics fingerprint reader Working

The Thinkpad X1E Gen 2 is a thin-and-light 15.6" workstation/multimedia laptop from Lenovo's 2019 ThinkPad X lineup.

This page specifically concerns the specifics of running Arch Linux on this laptop. See Laptop for generic laptop-related information, or ThinkPad for other ThinkPad laptops.

Hardware

Thunderbolt 3

To use Thunderbolt 3, ensure you are on the latest BIOS firmware (doing the following steps on older BIOSes may brick your device):

1. Go into BIOS

2. Enable BIOS Assist mode: (Thunderbolt 3 -> Enable BIOS assist mode) *Ensure you're on the latest BIOS!*

Battery

Invalid stats workaround

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 /etc/mkinitcpio.conf .

MODULES=(battery)

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

Note: You can also build the battery module into your kernel.

Battery life and graphics

bbswitch does not work on this laptop to disable the NVIDIA card when not in use. To disable the NVIDIA card you can run:

# tee /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:01\:00.1/remove <<<1 # tee /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000\:01\:00.0/remove <<<1

Note: It may be much easier to just use optimus manager with the necessary power options described in It may be much easier to just use optimus manager with the necessary power options described in #Graphics

Graphics

Nouveau

Currently (5.2.9-arch1), the Nouveau driver can cause quite a lot of kernel panics when using the webcamera. You should blacklist this driver to prevent it from being loaded.

NVIDIA

Prime features

The NVIDIA driver now supports PRIME Offloading. Following this guide you can try out this new mode.

Power Management

To get the best power options the graphics card may be configured to use low power mode by following the guide here

Optimus manager

Currently, one of the easiest solutions for this laptop is to use optimus-manager with the hybrid backend. This requires the most up to date nvidia and xorg-server packages.

This allows easy switching between the PRIME offloading feature above, and a mode where external display ports (HDMI and USB-C) work.

Steps to setup after a fresh install:

Install nvidia proprietary driver 'prime', not bumblebee.

Reboot.

Install AUR .

. Reboot.

`optimus-manager --switch nvidia` # this will restart your X session, but not make the change persistent.

`lspci -k | grep -A 2 -E "(VGA|3D)"` should say: Kernel driver in use: nvidia.

`xrandr` should list HDMI output - try to configure screen, should work.

`nvidia-settings` should work.

`optimus-manager --set-startup nvidia` makes it persistent.

Check: reboot, external display should still work.

OLED Display

Brightness control

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"

Don't forget to update the grub configuration to apply the changes.

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

Audio

Audio pop on shutdown and startup

To work around the loud audio artifacts on startup/shutdown follow the guide for enabling the audio powersave: Power management#Audio.

Fingerprint

The 1.90.1 version of fprint supports this device after a firmware update.

Setup fwupd then, using the latest version of the fwupd tool you should be able to run:

fwupdmgr get-devices

and see a "Prometheus" device in the list.

If your fingerprint has been enrolled in Windows before, you may need to reset your fingerprint data in BIOS to see a "Prometheus" device.

Install the firmware by running

fwupdmgr update

Note: At this point, a reboot may be required

You should then be able to enroll your fingerprints with Fprint#Configuration

Card reader

The optional card reader that the Lenovo can install in your laptop is a Alcor Micro AU9560. There are some tools you can use to test your card reader.

Installation

Install and from official repositories. Then, Start and enable pcscd.socket .

systemctl enable pcscd systemctl start pcscd

Testing

First, verify that your card reader can be found by pcsc:

opensc-tool --list-readers

Now, insert a smart card and run the following to verify that pcsc is able to read your card:

pcsc_scan

Webcam

The webcam in this laptop is capable of "Windows Hello" which has a Linux version called Howdy. The device you should use to configure howdy on this laptop is /dev/video0 . It is possible that Howdy will only use the RGB camera, in this case some additional configuration and software is required. Follow this guide on installing chicony-ir-toggle and setting it up as a service. Or you can just install AUR , which automatically helps you enable the IR camera after booting the system and waking up from sleep. Before installing AUR , make sure you change the local variables in prepare() in PKGBUILD to match your own IR camera. In this case try changing the video device to /dev/video2 in the howdy config sudo howdy config , if everything has worked correctly when running sudo howdy test the IR Camera should have a very faint red light. This will indicate that the camera is functioning and Howdy is using the IR camera correctly.

Keyboard

Backlight

If you would like to enable the keyboard backlight, run:

echo 2 | tee /sys/class/leds/tpacpi::kbd_backlight/brightness

The "2" represents the brightness and can be any value between 0 and 2 (inclusive) for the laptop. For example, to turn off the keyboard backlight, you would run:

echo 0 | tee /sys/class/leds/tpacpi::kbd_backlight/brightness

Skipping keystrokes

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

The touchpad works out-of-the-box with libinput. However, it will be very insensitive.

Make sure to not install - this driver is deprecated, lacks all features mentioned below, but is still installed by default with the group.

You can check which input driver Xorg is using for your touchpad with:

grep 'Using input driver' /var/log/Xorg.0.log | grep 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' # Expected output: [ 248.282] (II) Using input driver 'libinput' for 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad'

You can explicitly chose an input driver by placing an Xorg configuration snippet like the following in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-synaptics.conf:

Section "InputClass" Identifier "touchpad catchall" MatchIsTouchpad "on" Driver "libinput" EndSection

Acceleration

You can adjust acceleration using the command:

xinput set-prop 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' 'libinput Accel Speed' 0.5

Two-Finger Right Click

Additionally, if you wish to disable right-clicking so that you use two finger click as your right click, run:

xinput set-prop 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' 'libinput Click Method Enabled' 0 1

Tap Clicking

If you would like for a tap on the touchpad to be registered as a click, use:

xinput set-prop 'SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad' 'libinput Tapping Enabled' 1

WiFi

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: [1] [2] [3]

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 error: failed to save storage - write protected ), it may help to reset the BIOS to factory defaults (F9) and/or upgrade your BIOS. To install Arch Linux you need to disable Secure Boot . If you cannot do so (e.g. because of), 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:

DETERMINING WHICH VERSION IS INSTALLED [Checking on ThinkPad Setup] 1. Turn on the computer. 2. While the "To interrupt normal startup, press Enter" message is displayed at the lower-left area or lower-center of the screen, press the F1 key. The ThinkPad Setup menu will be displayed. If a password prompt appears, type the correct password. 3. Locate the UEFI BIOS Version line. "UEFI BIOS version (BIOS ID)" will be shown on the UEFI BIOS Version line. 4. Turn off the computer.

Alternatively, use fwupdmgr from fwupd without rebooting:

$ fwupdmgr get-devices

... ├─System Firmware: │ Current version: 0.1.30 ...

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.

Note: If the UEFI BIOS has been updated to version 1.34 or higher, it is no longer able to roll back to the version before 1.34 for boot problem prevention. The same applies for version 1.26 as well.

Version 1.31 introduced new thermal controls. Some users may experience increased temperatures before fan activation. Reverting to 1.29 restores previous thermal controls and fan operation. 1.34 states reverted thermal controls, however, thermal issues are still present. Be advised that there is no downgrading from 1.34.

Software

Throttling fix

You will see a dmesg error that talks about CPU throttling.

There are a few ways to fix this. You should only use one of the following as they both attempt to undervolt.

Throttled

To fix this install , then run

systemctl enable --now lenovo_fix.service

CPU undervolting

Undervolting the CPU/Intel GPU works well with intel-undervolt.