Installing Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) on an X61 Tablet

Introduction

This page covers the additional hardware setup required after installing Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty to make the Thinkpad X61 Tablet Fully Functional. All directions are given in the HAL, fdi, and acpi thus avoiding the xorg.conf file completely.

What Works

Forward / Back Buttons, Audio Buttons, Brightness Fn Buttons, Radio Fn Button, Suspend Fn Button, Power Fn Button, Lock Fn Button, Hibernate Fn Button, Tablet L/R/U/D Buttons, Tablet Enter Button, Tablet Esc Button, Media Fn Buttons NumberLock Fn Button, Tablet Pen, Wireless Radio, Bluetooth Radio,

What Almost Works

Tablet Toolbox Button - causes lock or suspend, Tablet Touch – Requires Calibration,

What Does Not Work

Tablet Control-Alt-Delete Button, Tablet Rotate Button, Middle Mouse Button, ThinkVantage Button, Magnify Fn Button, Fingerprint Reader, Automatic Screen Rotation, ThinkVantage ActiveProtection,

Fixing Touch

Works out of the box, just needs some calibration.

Wacomcpl

The Wacom Tablet in the X61t is a serial Wacom tablet. It can be configured by using wacomcpl. Wacomcpl is part of the wacom-tools package and can be retrieved in apt:

sudo apt-get install wacom-tools

After this wacomcpl can be run by typing:

wacomcpl

in Terminal.

Helping wacomcpl

Unfortunately HAL assigns names to wacom devices in a way that the recent wacomcpl from jaunty cant find them, to help wacomcpl to find them:

Open a terminal and type:

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/wacomtohal

and paste this code in:

#! /bin/sh
## find any wacom devices
for udi in `hal-find-by-property --key input.x11_driver --string wacom`
do
type=`hal-get-property --udi $udi --key input.x11_options.Type`
## rewrite the names that the Xserver will use
hal-set-property --udi $udi --key info.product --string $type
done

then run :

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/wacomtohal
sudo update-rc.d wacomtohal defaults 27

now reboot and launch wacomcpl

Making Wacomcpl Settings Restore on Reboot

If you lose your calibration after reboot:

In terminal:

sudo gedit ~/.xinitrc

Find the line that says:

. /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

and change it to

#. /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

Save and exit.

Go to System>Preferences>Startup Applications and create a new entry named whatever you want.

The command should be:

sh /home/yourusername/.xinitrc

Your wacomcpl settings will now restore on reboot

Fixing the Tablet Toolbox Button

This key needs to be set to a keycode. Pick any empty one (241 is usually empty)

sudo setkeycodes 68 241

Now you can bind this key to any command.

Setup the Tablet Control-Alt-Delete Button

This key needs to be set to a keycode. Pick any empty one (242 is usually empty)

sudo setkeycodes 67 242

Now you can bind this key to any command.

Setup the Tablet Rotate Button

This key needs to be set to a keycode. Pick any empty one (240 is usually empty)

sudo setkeycodes 6c 240

Now you can bind this key to any command. (It should be possible to write a script to interact with the autorotate given on this page)

Setup the Middle Button Scrolling

Create a new file called /etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi typing:

sudo gedit /etc/hal/fdi/policy/mouse-wheel.fdi

And fill it with this code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 

 <match key="info.product" string="TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint">
 <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheel" type="string">true</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.EmulateWheelButton" type="string">2</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.XAxisMapping" type="string">6 7</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.YAxisMapping" type="string">4 5</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.ZAxsisMapping" type="string">4 5</merge>
 <merge key="input.x11_options.Emulate3Buttons" type="string">true</merge>
</match>

Reboot

Setup ThinkVantage Button

The ThinkVantage button does not work only in that it is not bound to anything. To bind it go to System>Preferences>Keyboard Shortcuts and set it to perform any command.

Setup Magnify Fn Button

No Solution Yet.

Setup Fingerprint Reader

The Thinkfinger driver works fine on the X61. The following is the paraphrased commands from the installing thinkfinger page that are relevant to the X61 and Ubuntu 9.04.

In terminal, add a key:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com F2A12FABE936A7BBDC4EA33351DB180D1323E149

Add the PPA repositories to your sources.list (/etc/apt/sources.list):

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jon-oberheide/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/jon-oberheide/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Update installer:

sudo apt-get update

And install:

sudo apt-get install thinkfinger-tools libpam-thinkfinger

Now the driver is installed and should be working. You can try it (as root) with

sudo tf-tool --acquire 

and

sudo tf-tool --verify 

This will ask you to swipe your finger three times, save the fingerprint to /tmp/test.bir and then verify your fingerprint with the bir-file.

Setup Pam:

sudo /usr/lib/pam-thinkfinger/pam-thinkfinger-enable

Add user:

tf-tool --acquire $USERNAME

Optional: Change the login screen to allow keyboard-less login:

Go to: System>Administration>Login Window

Click on the 'Local' tab.

Set the drop-down boxes to: 'Themed with face browser' and 'Selected Only' and choose 'Human List' from the list of logins.

Note: it may take some time for the reader to startup, give it 5 seconds before use and before pressing enter to initiate login.

Setup Automatic Screen Rotation

The following was inspired by Installing Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) on an X61 Tablet, with some minor additions:

• put the following in /etc/acpi/events/lenovo-rotate-normal

# /etc/acpi/events/lenovo-rotate-normal
# This is called when the user rotates the screen to laptop mode

event=ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 0000500a
action=/etc/acpi/thinkpad-rotatescreen.sh right

• put the following in /etc/acpi/events/lenovo-rotate-tablet

# /etc/acpi/events/lenovo-rotate-tablet
# This is called when the user rotates the screen to tablet mode

event=ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00005009
action=/etc/acpi/thinkpad-rotatescreen.sh normal

• put the following in /etc/acpi/thinkpad-rotatescreen.sh and make it executable

#!/bin/sh
#
# This script rotates the display in TabletPCs when screen is changed from
# laptop to tablet mode, or when rotation button is pressed

test -f /usr/share/acpi-support/key-constants || exit 0

. /usr/share/acpi-support/power-funcs

# i'm not trusting this ...
#if [ -f /var/lib/acpi-support/screen-rotation ] ; then
#  ROTATION=`cat /var/lib/acpi-support/screen-rotation`
#fi

# ... and thus calling this with a parameter
ROTATION="$1" # this should be called "ROTATION_FROM"

case "$ROTATION" in
	right)
	NEW_ROTATION="normal"
	NEW_WACOM="none"
	;;
	*)
	NEW_ROTATION="right"
	NEW_WACOM="cw"
	;;
esac

for x in /tmp/.X11-unix/*; do
	displaynum=`echo $x | sed s#/tmp/.X11-unix/X##`
	getXconsole;
	if [ x"$XAUTHORITY" != x"" ]; then
	    export DISPLAY=":$displaynum"           
	    /usr/bin/xrandr -o $NEW_ROTATION && echo $NEW_ROTATION > /var/lib/acpi-support/screen-rotation

	    # rotate the stylus
	    for type in stylus eraser cursor ; do
		/usr/bin/xsetwacom set $type rotate $NEW_WACOM
	    done

	    # rotate the arrow keys
	    case "$NEW_ROTATION" in
		right)
			xmodmap - <<END
keycode 114 = Up NoSymbol Up NoSymbol Up
keycode 111 = Left NoSymbol Left NoSymbol Left
keycode 116 = Right NoSymbol Right NoSymbol Right
keycode 113 = Down NoSymbol Down NoSymbol Down
END
			;;
		*)
			xmodmap - <<END
keycode 111 = Up NoSymbol Up NoSymbol Up
keycode 113 = Left NoSymbol Left NoSymbol Left
keycode 114 = Right NoSymbol Right NoSymbol Right
keycode 116 = Down NoSymbol Down NoSymbol Down
END
			;;
	    esac
	fi
done

Note: check the output of

xsetwacom list dev

to identify the devices to put in the line

for type in stylus eraser cursor ; do

My system has a touch device and not a cursor device.

Setup ThinkVantage ActiveProtection

No Solution Yet.

Useful Task: Disable Bluetooth on Startup

These instructions will disable the bluetooth radio being activated during the boot. The radio can then be activated at the users discretion using Fn F5 (Radio Fn Button).

edit /etc/rc.local and add:

chmod 666 /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth 
echo "disable" > /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth

before the 'exit 0' line

• note chmod 666 makes this file editable by everyone, this may compromise security, try different settings to find the one that suits your needs (655 may work)

• note proc is depreciated and may not work in future releases

Useful Task: Enable Laptop Mode

Laptop mode is a power saving tool that allows the hard drive to spin down to conserve battery power. This is disabled by default as it has been known to cause problems on some computers, but it appears to work on the X61t.

• Warning: Laptop mode stores data in ram teporarily until it needs to write to disk. Power Loss in laptop mode could lead to significant data loss.

• Warning: Excessive spin-up spin-down cycles will wear out your hard drive much more quickly than normal use. Be careful when configuring laptop mode settings.

• Warning: Do Not Use Laptop Mode if you have a SSD. It is for platter drives only.

Edit /etc/default/acpi-support

sudo gedit /etc/default/acpi-support

Set: "ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=true"

Configure Laptop Mode

sudo gedit /etc/laptop-mode/laptop-mode.conf

Optional Task: Adjusting Trackpoint Settings

If you find that your trackpoint pointer is too slow, use control-trackpoint to adjust your settings.

To install, install sysfsutils first, as per tpctl's documentaton

 sudo apt-get install sysfsutils

then install the .deb from sourceforge (the graphical installer worked for me). Once installed, run:

 sudo configure-trackpoint

Sources

The above is a compilation of my notes from when I installed Jaunty on my X61t. The code and many of the instructions come from various pages and sources around the Internet. I will attempt to document them when time permits. If you see anything that should be added or wish to cite a source I missed, please edit the page.