Installing Linux on Lenovo Thinkpad 11e

EDIT: 2018-11-30

I have been running this laptop for 3 years now.  I love the keyboard and, with Linux, it is reasonably fast (for the size and price).  It also feels sturdy as I had hoped.  However, there were three little annoyances that stopped me being completely happy:

• Sometimes the battery drained even when the machine was powered off! I think that this was meant to be related to some kind of ‘smart suspend’ feature but what it meant for me was that I could never depend on it having power when I came to turn it on. This is hopeless for a fieldwork laptop.
• I had to keep the function key permanently enabled to be able to use F1 to F12. This wasn’t too much of a problem, except that it had the side effect of turning the ‘End’ key into ‘Insert’.  This was really annoying.
• I couldn’t do any BIOS updates because they required Windows.  I was stuck on version 1.14 from May 2015.

This week, I discovered that it is now possible to do BIOS updates via bootable USB. I followed these instructions. and downloaded the latest version (1.34) from the Lenovo website Support section. This includes a fix for the function keys and for “an issue that drained the battery during shutdown”. The only hurdle was that the one-time boot order selection didn’t work (I got some PXE error that meant it was trying to boot from network), so I had to change the standard boot order and put USB HDD at the top. After that, all went smoothly.

I am running Ubuntu Mate 18.04.1 with the ‘Netbook’ layout. The brightness keys worked out of the box. My function keys now work properly having set them in the BIOS. I was able to set CapsLock as Ctrl in the Mate Keyboard Settings. All good so far, and most of what is below is redundant (except touchpad fix at the bottom, which should be fixed as standard soon).

I haven’t tested the power situation yet, but I am optimistic. If it has been fixed, then this laptop may finally live up to the high hopes that I had for it.

The original post is below the line.

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I recently updated my laptop to a Lenovo Thinkpad 11e.  The laptop meets military specifications for shock, humidity, temperature and dust and I swapped the hard drive for a solid state drive that has no moving parts.  It should be ideal for geological fieldwork.

I installed Linux Mint 17 XFCE, which is based on Ubuntu 14.04 Long Term Support.  Mostly things worked out of the box, but there were a few tweaks that I had to make to get everything as I wanted.  These notes are here to remind me and in case they are helpful to anyone else.

Enable brightness changing via function keys

Initially, the brightness function keys wouldn’t actually adjust the brightness.  The icon would appear but the brightness remained the same.  To fix:

• Add the following to /etc/default/grub:

   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="video.use_native_backlight=1"

• Then run:

  sudo update-grub

Swap End/Insert keys

By default, the function keys are set up to change brightness, volume etc.  Turning on FnLock sets them to the more useful F1 to F12 but has the unwelcome side effect of changing the End key into Insert.  I don’t know who thought that was a good idea.

There are a number of solutions described online that use xmodmap.  The downside with these is that they are forgotten when the laptop is suspended.  To make the change persistent:

• Edit /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/pc so that it reads as follows:

  key  <INS> {    [  End        ]    };
  key  <END> {    [  Insert     ]    };

• Then delete old keymaps:

  sudo rm /var/lib/xkb/server*.xkm

Turn CapsLock into another Ctrl key

This is more for personal preference, as is more comfortable when using Vim text editor, where the aim is to keep your fingers on the home row as much as possible.

• Create a file /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-keyboard.conf with the following contents:

  Section "InputClass"
          Identifier "system-keyboard"
          MatchIsKeyboard "on"
          Option "XkbOptions" "ctrl:nocaps"
  EndSection

Add myself to dialout group

This was necessary because my GPS connects via USB to serial adapter as /dev/ttyUSB0.  I needed to be part of the dialout group to have permissions to access it.

• Run:

  sudo usermod -a -G dialout my_username

• Then logout and back in.

Fix unstable wifi connection

Sometimes the wifi connection drops out intermittently, or is just slow.  The wifi card is an Intel Dual Band Wireless AC7260.  There seem to be a number of potential reasons and solutions for this online, ranging from hardware faults, problems with the router, power management and old drivers.  There are a number of questions about this on AskUbuntu, including here and here.  It isn’t too much of an issue for now, but when I find a solution I’ll update this post. <UPDATE: this went away when I upgraded to kernel 3.13.

Touchpad not working in Ubuntu 18.04.1

(Updated 2018-11-29). Since a recent update, my touchpad stopped working. I found the following post that fixed it: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1091044/xubuntu-18-04-18-04-1-upgrade-synaptics-touchpad-not-working

The process was to add the bionic-proposed repository and then run the following:

sudo apt install libkmod2
sudo update-initramfs -u

After a reboot, the touchpad worked again.