Today's phlog entry is about how to
set up a ThinkPad L440 running Debian
LXDE. The tutorial deals with the
following issues:
* screen brightness keys
* touchpad setup
* window snapping
* sharp fonts
The information here should be
relevant to all *40 ThinkPads.
I'm posting this here for my own
future reference, but I know that
there are other ThinkPad users around
gopherspace, so I might as well share
the details.
NETINSTALL / WIFI SETUP
=======================
The net install iso is great for
installing LXDE. It presents you with
a choice of desktops at some
point in the installation
procedure.
During installation, the wifi works
and the wifi hardware is identified
for you. Write down the name of the
hardware. Mine was:
rtlwifi/rtl8192eefw.bin
After reboot, the wifi will no longer
work properly, because it depends on
non-free firmware. You'll need to plug
in your ethernet, add the contrib and
non-free repos to the
/etc/apt/sources.list lines, and
install the wifi firmware.
I found the correct driver by typing:
apt-get update
apt-cache search rtlwifi
Then just install the firmware. For
me, this involved the following
installation:
apt-get install firmware-realtek
Use synaptic to do this part if you
prefer the GUI.
SCREEN BRIGHTNESS KEY SETUP
===========================
The sound buttons on the L440 work
with LXDE out of the box. The screen
brightness buttons do not. In order to
get them working, install the
xbacklight and xbindkeys packages.
Then follow these instructions[1]:
Check your /sys/class/backlight
folder. If you can see an
intel_backlight folder there ... then
creating a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file
with the below configuration should
work for you.
Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
Option "Backlight" "intel_backlight"
EndSection
You might need to log out and back in
before you conduct the next test.
Open a terminal and type "xbacklight
-10" without the quotation marks. The
screen should dim a little. You can
bump up the brightness by typing
"xbacklight +10".
Now that you've verified that
xbacklight works, create a file in
your home directory called
.xbindkeysrc with the leading period.
Enter the following in the file:
#BrightnessUp
"xbacklight +10"
XF86MonBrightnessUp
#BrightnessDown
"xbacklight -10"
XF86MonBrightnessDown
Save the file. Now the brightness keys
(F5 and F6) should work to raise and
lower your screen brightness. If they
don't, try logging out and logging
back in.
TOUCHPAD SETUP
==============
This one drove me crazy. I must have
spent three or four hours on it. It
turns out that it's really easy. I
have the original clunkpad in my L440.
Since no ThinkPad in the *40 series
has proper bottom buttons, regardless
of whether you switch to the *50
series trackpad or not, I wanted to
set up the clickpad sensibly, like a
mac, where a one-finger click anywhere
is a 'left click' and a two-finger
click is a 'right click'.
All that's required to make the change
is to add one line to the file
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf
Find the section that looks like this:
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "libinput"
EndSection
Add this line after Driver "libinput":
Option "ClickMethod" "clickfinger"
So in the end, the section will look
like this:
Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "libinput"
Option "ClickMethod" "clickfinger"
EndSection
That's it.
See the following link for more
libinput configuration details:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Libinput#Button_re-mapping
WINDOW SNAPPING
===============
I like to be able to "snap" my windows
to half-screen (left or right),
full-screen, or minimized state by
holding down the Windows Key and
pressing the arrow keys.
You can achieve this behaviour by
editing ~/.config/openbox/lxde-rc.xml
Add the following text[2] just prior
to the line that says ""
-- Leo's gemini proxy
-- Connecting to zaibatsu.circumlunar.space:1965...
-- Connected
-- Sending request
-- Meta line: 20 text/plain
-- Response ended
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