Lenovo Thinkpad X200s

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1. Hardware information

1.1. Standard Features

• One of the following processors:
  • Intel Core2 Duo processor SU9300 (1.2GHz, 3MB L2, 800MHz FSB)
  • Intel Core2 Duo processor SL9300 (1.6Ghz, 1Ghz FSB)
  • Intel Core2 Duo processor SL9400 (1.8Ghz, 1Ghz FSB)
• Onboard Graphics
  • Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
• One of the following screens
  • 1440x900 12.1" (LED backlight) 250 nit
  • 1280x800 12.1" (CCFL backlight) 200 nit
• Memory
  • Support for up to 4GB DDR3-RAM PC3-8500

• Card Reader (SD,SDHC,MMC,MS & MS Pro) Some configurations with SD-card slot only.

• Network
  • Wired
    • Intel Gigabit Ethernet Controller (82567LM)
  • Wireless

    • (MiniPCI Express slot 1) (Intel WiFi Link 5300AGN)

    • Bluetooth
    • UWB
• Other Options
  • Ultrabase
  • Fingerprint Gadget
  • Intel Turbo Memory 2GB
  • Audio (Conexant Azalia Audio Codec)
• Battery Sizes - 4 cell, 6 cell, 9 cell (sticks out the back)

2. CentOS-5

2.1. Installation

I had no problems during the installation process from a DVD image on a USB harddisk. The laptop itself has no DVD player, but you can use the DVD player from the Ultrabase to install directly from CD/DVD if you have one.

2.2. Post-installation notes

The following components worked out of the box:

• Video
• Sound
• Bluetooth
• Cardreader
• Suspend/resume
• Hardware sensors
• USB
• Intel SSD harddisk (200MB/sec random reads and 70MB/sec random writes !)
• Built-in camera
• Volume buttons

2.2.1. Wireless hardware support for Intel 5300AGN

CentOS 5.3 comes with working drivers for both the Ethernet and the Wireless. You need at least kernel 2.6.18-128.el5 !

I have added the following options to /etc/modprobe.conf to influence the iwlagn driver:

alias wlan0 iwlagn
options iwlagn fw_restart50=1 11n_disable50=1 qos_enable50=1 swcrypto50=1

2.2.2. Wireless firmware for Intel 5300AGN

I needed the Intel firmware for my Intel Wireless 5300AGN adapter, so I had to install the iwl5000-firmware package from RPMforge. As described on the Wireless page.

2.2.3. Onboard Ethernet

See above remark about kernel 2.6.18-128.el5 or higher.

2.2.4. Direct rendering

The video drivers for this hardware worked fine. For direct rendering support you need to load the i915 kernel module. One way to do this on start up is to add a line with "modprobe i915" to /etc/rc.d/rc.local (there should be some infrastructure to load kernel modules on boot).

Despite this, I could not make Compiz work (yet). GL applications crash the X server with CentOS 5.3.

2.2.5. Framebuffer driver

I am not a big fan of using the framebuffer driver (mostly because I seldom use text consoles nowadays), but if you like to boot with a framebuffer driver, try the following kernel command line parameters: vga=0x0368 or try vga=872 video=intelfb

2.2.6. External VGA port

I had some issues making the external VGA port work as I expected using Fn+F7. Apparently this was because X somehow finds 2 HDMI pipes that have no external connector. The easiest way to make everything work is to disable these HDMI ports from your /etc/X11/xorg.conf by doing something like this:

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "HDMI-1"
    Option        "Ignore" "True"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
    Identifier    "HDMI-2"
    Option        "Ignore" "True"
EndSection
Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Videocard0"
    Driver      "intel"
    Option      "monitor-HDMI-1" "HDMI-1"
    Option      "monitor-HDMI-2" "HDMI-2"
EndSection

This may also help if X has troubles with correctly setting your resolution, or changing resolution using xrandr.

2.2.7. Harddisk Active Protection System

Does not work out of the box. You can compile the driver and install the hdapsd package from RPMforge if you prefer.

2.2.8. Camera support

The built-in camera is driven by the uvcvideo driver, which on CentOS 5.3 correctly loads and provides the device node. But some programs do not use the V4L interface to this camera correctly:

• Ekiga crashes on V4L2 support

• gstreamer-properties does not work
• mplayer works for a few frames, then errs on buffers
• luvcview show a black screen
• ffplay works for a few frames, then errs on buffers

• tvtime complains because the device does not have all capabilities, does not provide its norm and because it does not support full size studio-quality images required by tvtime. This is true for many low-quality webcams.

Most likely we need to control the device before being able to use it with those apps. Or these applications need a more robust interface.

But ffmpeg and xawtv work !

With ffmpeg from RPMforge, you can run the following command to record from your camera:

ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -s 320x240 -i /dev/video0 -f m4v camera.m4v

And play it back using vlc or mplayer. Or simply watch yourself using xawtv from RPMforge

Good news:' The kmod-video4linux from the ELRepo repository provides a newer driver and makes the webcam device work without flaws. Works great in Skype and other applications.

2.2.9. Volume buttons

keycode 144 = XF86AudioPrev
keycode 153 = XF86AudioNext
keycode 160 = XF86AudioMute
keycode 162 = XF86AudioPlay
keycode 164 = XF86AudioStop
keycode 174 = XF86AudioLowerVolume
keycode 176 = XF86AudioRaiseVolume
keycode 233 = XF86Forward
keycode 234 = XF86Back

For the additional Fn key combinations to work, you need to load the thinkpad_acpi module with some extra options, add this to the /etc/modprobe.conf:

options thinkpad_acpi experimental=1 hotkey_report_mode=1

From then on, you can add new acpi events in /etc/acpi/events/, like /etc/acpi/events/fn-f5.sh for the Fn-F5 key combination:

event=ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00001005
action=/etc/acpi/actions/thinkpad-bluetooth.sh

case "$(/bin/awk '/status/ { print $2 }' /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth)" in
    (enabled) echo -n disable >/proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth ;;
    (disabled) echo -n enable >/proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth ;;
    (*) echo "ERROR: Unkown status from /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth, please fix." >&2 ;;
esac

chmod a+x /etc/acpi/actions/thinkpad-bluetooth.sh

service acpid restart