Installing OpenSUSE 11.3 on a ThinkPad T410s

Model

Lenovo Thinkpad T410s 2912-W1C, BIOS 6UET36WW (1.14), ECP 6UHT28WW (1.09)

General

This installation instruction describes these parts that do not or do not completely work after my OpenSUSE 11.3 DVD installation using KDE 4 as window manager.

Graphics

Samsung SyncMaster 225bw (1680x1050) is unuseable when connected via DVI, probably due to an EDID-related bug (see the corresponding bug report). Other displays are probably not affected, but feedback is lacking.

As a workaround, create a standard mode, add it to the display and set the display to use it:

xrandr --newmode "1680x1050+h+v"  119.00  1680 1728 1760 1840  1050 1053 1059 1080 +hsync +vsync;
xrandr --addmode HDMI2 "1680x1050+h+v";
sleep 0.5; # arbitrary crashes might occur without this statement, probably some race condition
xrandr --output HDMI2 --mode "1680x1050+h+v";

Thanks to openSUSE's Stefan Dirsch for pointing that out in the bug report mentioned above.

Network

Wireless LAN

The Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 adapter works out of the box. Note that your T410s might come with another adapter installed, so your mileage may vary.

Wireless WAN

The optional Wireless WAN (WWAN) adapter Qualcomm Gobi 2000 does not work out of the box. First, the current (2.6.34) qcserial kernel driver module does not support the 2000 version of the Qualcomm Gobi. Second, the application that uploads the firmware to the WWAN device is broken since kernel 2.6.32 [1]. Thus, you need kernel 2.6.35 or to backport the related patches manually [2].

UltraNav

TouchPad

The TouchPad is configured by the KDE system settings, e.g., the mouse clicks triggered by tapping. However, for enabling two-finger scrolling, some XInput properties must be set:

xinput set-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Scrolling" 1 0
xinput set-prop "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad" "Synaptics Two-Finger Pressure" 30

Another way to adjust the synaptics parameters is via a file under xorg.conf.d, like

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-synaptics.conf

I found the following settings to be comfortable:

Section "InputClass"
       Identifier "touchpad catchall"
       Driver  "synaptics"
       MatchIsTouchpad "on"
       MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
       Option  "HorizScrollDelta"      "99"         # enable horizontal scrolling
       Option  "VertTwoFingerScroll"   "True"       # enable vertical two-finger scrolling
       Option  "VertScrollDelta"       "99"
       Option  "TapButton1"            "1"          # 1-finger tap = left mouse click
       Option  "TapButton2"            "3"          # 2-finger tap = right mouse click
EndSection

The synaptics manpage describes all possible options.

man synaptic

Palm detection vs. syndaemon

For many people, spurious mouse clicks during typing, caused by your palm touching the pad, are a major source of serious headache. There are two ways out: Enabling palm detection in the driver and syndaemon, a program which shuts off the touchpad while you're typing.

I found syndaemon to be more useful, because it can be difficult to adjust the palm detection parameters such that it reliably suppresses palm events without also suppressing some voluntary mouse events.

To enable palm detection, add the following lines to your xorg.conf (or the respective file under xorg.conf.d):

       Option  "PalmDetect"            "True"       # enable palm detection
       Option  "PalmMinZ"              "50"
       Option  "PalmMinWidth"          "7"

To enable syndaemon, add a line like the following to the autostart mechanism of your favorite desktop environment:

syndaemon -d -i 1.0 -K 

This makes syndaemon start as a daemon (-d), disable the touchpad during 1.0 seconds after the last key stroke (-i 1.0), ignoring modifier keys and modifier key combos (-K). Other people find the -t option useful, which disables only tapping and scrolling, but not mouse movements. The syndaemon man page gives you all options.

man syndaemon

TrackPoint

The TrackPoint can be used to perform scrolling, similar to Windows, by holding down the middle button and moving the TrackPoint. Horizontal scrolling is now enabled by default. The Opera browser moves forward and backward in its history instead, see here to fix it or disable horizontal scrolling completely by:

xinput set-prop "TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint" "Evdev Wheel Emulation Axes" 8 -1 -1 4 5

Integrated Fingerprint Reader

The Integrated Fingerprint Reader is a UPEK TouchStrip (USB ID 147e:2016). The release of libfprint that ships with openSUSE 11.3 does NOT support that device. A device with the same ID is listed as being supported on the fprint wiki. Rumor has it that the development version of libfprint (v. 0.1.0_pre2) supports the reader, but a naive build from source of this lib failed to read fingerprints from the sensor.

More information is in the corresponding bug in openSUSE's bugzilla, and on the fprint wiki.