Installing Gentoo on a ThinkPad X220
Contents
Installing Gentoo on a Lenovo X220 with UEFI and GPT
The goal is a working Gentoo installation utilizing UEFI and GPT on an SSD. I work on improving the page step-by-step, but it's more or less for the advanced gentoo user. But you can always ask me for clarification. :)
Model Specs
General Specs
X220 - 4290-W1B, i5-2520M, 4GB RAM
replaced internal HD with SSD Intel 320 Series 120GB, 2.5", SATA II (SSDSA2CW120G310)
cpuinfo
processor : 0 vendor_id : GenuineIntel cpu family : 6 model : 42 model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2520M CPU @ 2.50GHz stepping : 7 cpu MHz : 2501.000 cache size : 3072 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 4 core id : 0 cpu cores : 2 apicid : 0 initial apicid : 0 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 13 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt aes xsave avx lahf_lm ida arat epb xsaveopt pln pts dts tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid bogomips : 4983.17 clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 36 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management:
lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family DRAM Controller (rev 09) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family HECI Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:16.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family KT Controller (rev 04) 00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 04) 00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b4) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev b4) 00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b4) 00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev b4) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation QM67 Express Chipset Family LPC Controller (rev 04) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04) 03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6205 (rev 34) 0d:00.0 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd Device e823 (rev 04)
lsusb
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub Bus 001 Device 003: ID 147e:2016 Upek Biometric Touchchip/Touchstrip Fingerprint Sensor Bus 001 Device 004: ID 04f2:b217 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
Required Kernel modules for the X220 hardware
- Intel Gigabit Ethernet: (CONFIG_E1000EI)
- Intel WLAN: (CONFIG_IWLAGNI)
- Intel HD Grapic: (CONFIG_DRM_I915I)
- TPM Chip (CONFIG_TCG_TIS)
BIOS Update
Turns out to be very Linux unfriendly. There a ways to boot the .iso image with grub. I tried grub2 with help from syslinux memdisk and reached some kind of bios update menu. But got stuck there. After wasting some time I did it by installing Win7 and running the Windows BIOS update tool. Lenovo has to do better here. For example by providing some sort of Linux BIOS update tool, or at least an UEFI bootable USB stick image.
Boot from USB Stick
Sysresccd (2.2.0), which has a pretty nice script to create a bootable USB-Stick, failed to boot on the X220. Created an bootable usb stick from the gentoo-minimal.iso with unetbootin. Works.
Partition the Drive
# parted
(parted) mklabel gpt
(parted) mkpart primary fat32 1 201
(parted) set 1 boot on
(parted) mkpart primary linux-swap 202 4047
(parted) mkpart pimrary ext2 4048 120GB
Format the partitions
# mkfs.vfat /dev/sda1
# mkswap /dev/sda2
# mkfs.btrfs /dev/sda3
Gentoo Installation
Gentoo stage3
Just like the handbook, boot from gentoo-minimal-image. Unpack stage3 and portage. Edit fstab and set a root password. Everything else can be done later on.
Grub with efi support installation
This was by far the hardest part yet. Because UEFI and GPT a relatively new and I am not so familiar with it and the documentation isn't so good yet. Basically EFI on the X220 looks for a FAT32 formatted GPT partition with the boot flag set. If it finds one it tries to start /EFI/boot/bootx64.efi (Note that this is actually case-insensitive because of FAT32).
Grub-1.99 from scarabeus overlay is needed. Fix the STRIP_MASK error, remove last "a". Enable GRUB_PLATFORMS=efi-64 in make.conf. TODO add tar.gz with fixed ebuild for adding to overlay
# cp /usr/share/grub/{unicode.pf2,ascii.pf2} /boot/efi/efi/grub/
Important part:
# grub-mkimage -d /lib/grub/x86_64-efi -O x86_64-efi -p "" -o /boot/efi/efi/boot/bootx64.efi part_gpt btrfs fat ext2 normal chain boot configfile linux multiboot efi_gop
Optional but useful:
# cp /lib/grub/x86_64-efi/*.mod /boot/efi/efi/boot/
# cp /lib/grub/x86_64-efi/*.lst /boot/efi/efi/boot/
Minimal grub.cfg
set prefix(hd0,gpt1)/efi/boot
pager=1
timeout=20
menuentry "Gentoo Linux" {
set root=(hd0,gpt3)
linux /boot/bzImage root=/dev/sda3 ro raid=noautodetect
}
Put grub.cf in same directory as bootx64.efi: /boot/efi/efi/boot/
Thanks to Finnbarr P. Murphy for his blog posts about Grub and UEFI
Kernel
For UEFI on the X220 you have to use a kernel > 3.0-rc1
My current Kernel .config (3.0-rc5). Please feel free to comment if you have spotted an unnecessary enabled hardware option or something that should be enabled on the X220. The config is hosted as github gist, so you can easily ask for merges with your version. This is work in progress :)
Fixing i915 suspend issues
Kernels > 2.6.37 have an bug which prevents the X220 from resuming after suspend. You have to change a tiny little flag as described here.
--- a/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_drv.c
+++ b/drivers/gpu/drm/i915/i915_drv.c
@@ -183,7 +183,7 @@ static const struct intel_device_info intel_sandybridge_d_info = {
static const struct intel_device_info intel_sandybridge_m_info = {
.gen = 6, .is_mobile = 1,
.need_gfx_hws = 1, .has_hotplug = 1,
- .has_fbc = 1,
+ .has_fbc = 0,
.has_bsd_ring = 1,
.has_blt_ring = 1,
};
make.conf
/etc/make.conf
CFLAGS="-march=core2 -O3 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
MAKEOPTS="-j 4"
GRUP_PLATFORMS="grub_platforms_efi-64"
INPUT_DEVICES="evdev synaptics"
VIDEO_CARDS="intel vesa fbdev"
Finishing touches
Set timezone
Set locale.gen
Hardware setup
WLAN Intel Advanced 6205
# emerge wpa_supplicant linux-firmware
Further installation steps
Emerging the system
xorg
# emerge xorg-x11
The touchpad can be accessed by the evdev and the synaptics driver, which can lead to x11 not starting. To fix this add the following lines to /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf.
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Option "TapButton1" "1"
Option "TapButton2" "2"
Option "TapButton3" "3"
gnome and gdm
# emerge gnome
Bug 372001 workaround from here allows you to emerge nss.
# emerge gdm
Network Manager
Emerge a newer version of NetworkManager which comes with a built-in gentoo module. You can read more about the module on Mu Qioa's Blog
# emerge =net-misc/networkmanager-0.8.2-r10 --autounmask-write
# rc-update add NetworkManager default
Make sure that the ifnet module (gentoo interface handling) is enabled: /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf
[main] plugins=ifnet,keyfile [ifnet] managed=true auto_refresh=false
Ecryptfs home
I have setup an ecryptfs home for my user account and written an how-to about it in the gentoo-wiki. Read it here
