Installing Ubuntu 12.10 on Thinkpad Twist

Installing Ubuntu 12.10 on the Lenovo Twist ultrabook

Overview

Specs

Lenovo Twist - S230u (model 3347-CTO)
Ubuntu 12.10 - 64bit (ubuntu-12.10-desktop-amd64.iso)

TODO

DMESG etc to follow

What Works

Touch screen - single touch only

FIXME

Needs review. Multitouch worked for me --Shane 03:20, 29 January 2013 (CET)

Sound, WLAN, camera, SSD works
WWAN works

What Does Not Work

GPS does not work

Install

ATTENTION!

Since this device ships with the BIOS set to boot from UEFI only. You must enable Legacy boot option in the BIOS before you can begin installing Ubuntu.

Enable Legacy boot in BIOS
Plug in USB drive containing Ubuntu 12.10 install image
Turn power on
Proceed through install
Reboot when done
Log in and install any available updates (rebooting as needed)

Customize

Additional Packages

Much of what follows depends on some additional tools. You can run the following command to install them all at once:

$ sudo apt-get install \
mesa-utils               # resolves "Graphics Unknown" reported in system info \
input-utils              # Misc tools to assist in detecting and configuring special HW keys/events

Graphics

Fix "unknown" graphics adapter

Install mesa-utils, which adds glxinfo, used by system info to report the "friendly" graphics device name $ sudo apt-get install mesa-utils

Enable SNA

To enable SNA (vs. default UXA) in X, create an Xorg config option file (/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-enable-sna.conf) as follows:

# cat <<EOF > /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-enable-sna.conf
Section "Device"
    Identifier "Card0"
    Driver "intel"
    Option "AccelMethod" "sna"
EndSection
EOF

Key Bindings

Hint:

Lenovo's intended behavior for the Function keys in Windows 8 is defined in the their Lenovo Twist User Manual)

Button

Purpose

HKEY

Scan Code

Key Code

Key Sym

Bind To

Works Out of Box

Works with Tweaking

F1

"Mute" key (toggle speaker muting)

unknown

113

unknown

yes

N/A

F2

"Volume Down" key

unknown

114

unknown

yes

N/A

F3

"Volume Up" key

unknown

115

unknown

yes

N/A

F4

"Mic" key (toggle mic muting)

00000080 0000101b

0x1A

micmute

unknown

/etc/acpi/event/lenovo-micmute
calls amixer to toggle Capture device

no

yes

F5

"Brightness Down" key

unknown

224

unknown

yes

N/A

F6

"Brightness Up" key

unknown

225

unknown

yes

N/A

F7

"Display" key (toggle display output selection)

unknown

0x06

227

switchvideomode

yes

N/A

F8

"Radio" key (toggle Airplane mode)

unknown

yes

N/A

F9

"Settings" key (launch settings charm/app)

00000080 0000101d

0x1C

unknown

gnome-control-center

no

yes

F10

"Search" key (launch search charm/app)

00000080 0000101e

0x1D

unknown

Meta-f (Unity file search)

no

yes

F11

"Task Manager" key (show opened programs)

00000080 0000101f

0x1E

unknown

Alt-Tab (task switcher)

no

yes

F12

"All Apps" key (show picker for all installed programs)

00000080 00001020

0x1F

unknown

Toggling TouchPad

One of the very annoying things about the available settings in 12.10 is that there no longer appears to be a way to completely disable the Synaptics TouchPad device from the UI. Also, no touchpad indicator applet appears to be available in the standard repos.

Related to this, is the very poor interaction between the TouchPad and the TouchScreen (Atmel maXTouch Digitizer) when the screen is folded into tablet mode. The result is the cursor begins to jump around and get "twitchy".

So, to solve this, there are two things to address:

How to disable/enable the TouchPad on demand (hotkey event or other keybinding)
How to disable/enable the TouchPad automatically when tablet mode is enabled/disabled

On Demand

To add new, custom, key bindings, launch the "Keyboard" editor:

$ gnome-control-center keyboard

Then navigate to the "Shortcuts" tab, select the "Custom Shortcuts" and then click the "+" button and provide the name and command for your binding. For example:

In this example, I tell it to invoke the script ~/toggle-touchpad.sh, which you can create like this:

cat <<EOF > ~/toggle-touchpad.sh
#!/bin/bash
declare -A TOGGLE=([true]=false [false]=true)
SCHEMA="org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad"
KEY="touchpad-enabled"
gsettings set $SCHEMA $KEY ${TOGGLE[$(gsettings get $SCHEMA $KEY)]}
EOF

Or, use this one-line version directly in the "Command:" field:

/bin/bash -c 'declare -A TOGGLE=([true]=false [false]=true) && \
    SCHEMA="org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad" && \
    KEY="touchpad-enabled" && \
    gsettings set $SCHEMA $KEY ${TOGGLE[$(gsettings get $SCHEMA $KEY)]}'

Finally, click the word "disabled" on the newly added custom shortcut and hit the button or key combination you want to use for toggling the TouchPads enabled state.

Automatic

To solve the "jitter" problem with the mouse when the Twist is in tablet mode, a few additions to the acpi events handlers is all that's required. The following need to be run as root, or via sudo.

First, we need to configure acpid to recognize the events triggered when the Twist changes tablet mode state:

cat <<EOF > /etc/acpi/events/twist-tablet-enabled
# /etc/acpi/events/twist-tablet-enabled
# This is called when the lid is placed in tablet position on
# Lenovo Twist ThinkPads

event=ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 00005009
action=/etc/acpi/twist-tabletmode.sh 1
EOF

cat <<EOF > /etc/acpi/events/twist-tablet-disabled
# /etc/acpi/events/twist-tablet-disabled
# This is called when the lid is placed in normal position on
# Lenovo Twist ThinkPads

event=ibm/hotkey HKEY 00000080 0000500a
action=/etc/acpi/twist-tabletmode.sh 0
EOF

# Now, restart acpid so it can re-read the event filters, including the ones you just added
killall -SIGHUP acpid

Second, create the referenced action script (/etc/acpi/twist-tabletmode.sh):

cat <<EOF > /etc/acpi/twist-tabletmode.sh
#!/bin/bash
[ -f /usr/share/acpi-support/state-funcs ] || exit 0 

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

getXconsole

# If passed in a (valid) arg, use it
[ "$1" ] && [ "$1" = "0" -o "$1" = "1" ] && MODE=${MODE:=${1}}

# Otherwise, use current state from thinkpad acpi sysfs entry, as described at
# http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/laptops/thinkpad-acpi.txt
MODE=${MODE:="$(cat /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/hotkey_tablet_mode)"}

TOUCHPAD_NAME="TouchPad"
TOUCHPAD_STATES=("enable" "disable")
TOUCHPAD_CMD=${TOUCHPAD_STATES[$MODE]}

TOUCHSCREEN_NAME="maXTouch"
TOUCHSCREEN_STATES=("disable" "enable")
TOUCHSCREEN_CMD=${TOUCHSCREEN_STATES[$MODE]}

# Get xinput ids for the TouchPad and TouchScreen devices
TOUCHPAD_ID=$(xinput list --id-only "$(xinput list --name-only|grep -m1 $TOUCHPAD_NAME)")
TOUCHSCREEN_ID=$(xinput list --id-only "$(xinput list --name-only|grep -m1 $TOUCHSCREEN_NAME)")
 
# Get users configured TouchPad state preference and honor it.
TOUCHPAD_ENABLED=$(sudo -iu $user gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad touchpad-enabled)
 
# Only change TouchPad state if touchpad-enabled=true and a device was found
[ ${#TOUCHPAD_ID} -gt 0 -a "$TOUCHPAD_ENABLED" = "true" ] && xinput $TOUCHPAD_CMD $TOUCHPAD_ID
 
# Only change TouchScreen state if a device was found
[ ${#TOUCHSCREEN_ID} -gt 0 ] && xinput $TOUCHSCREEN_CMD $TOUCHSCREEN_ID
  
EOF

# Make it executable...
chmod +x /etc/acpi/twist-tabletmode.sh

That's it!!! Time to test it out by converting the Twist into tablet mode. You can crack the lid about 1½ inches before the Twist will exit tablet mode. While in tablet mode, crack the lid and confirm that touching the TouchPad has no effect.

More Detail

Initially, I pursued this as an XInput issue, only to discover later after digging through this to solve the automatice use case during tablet mode changes, that there is a GSettings key that also is at play here. As I soon discovered, the GSettings key will actually determine if any changes vi xinput will be honored.

XInput Method

First, determine the xinput device id for the TouchPad

$ xinput list --name-only
SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad

Next, using this name, get the xinput device id for it

$ xinput list --id-only "SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad"
12

Now, to disable and then enable it, simply run

$ xinput disable 12
$ xinput enable 12

GSettings Method

There is a GSettings key in the org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad schema called touchpad-enabled. To get and set this key, you use the gsettings command from a terminal that is associated with your active user session:

Get the current value of touchpad-enabled

$ gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad touchpad-enabled
true

To disable the TouchPad, set touchpad-enabled to false

$ gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad touchpad-enabled false

Now check the value of touchpad-enabled, should be false...

$ gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.touchpad touchpad-enabled
false

Think Light Control

You can control red the LED in the "i" of the "ThinkPad" logo as follows

Turn on the LED...

# echo 0 on > /proc/acpi/ibm/led

Turn off the LED...

# echo 0 off > /proc/acpi/ibm/led

Blink the LED

# echo 0 blink > /proc/acpi/ibm/led

Headphone Plug Events

On the Twist, when I was testing this, /dev/input/event12 was where Headphone jack plug and unplug events were being reported

Install the input-utils package and then run:

# input-events 12
/dev/input/event12
   bustype : (null)
   vendor  : 0x0
   product : 0x0
   version : 0
   name    : "HDA Intel PCH Headphone"
   phys    : "ALSA"
   bits ev : EV_SYN EV_SW

waiting for events
11:54:14.257360: EV_SW SW_HEADPHONE_INSERT 1
11:54:14.257361: EV_SYN code=0 value=0
11:54:14.587882: EV_SW SW_HEADPHONE_INSERT 0
11:54:14.587883: EV_SYN code=0 value=0

NOTE!

SW_HEADPHONE_INSERT 1 represents the "plug" event
SW_HEADPHONE_INSERT 0 represents the "unplug" event

Input Mapping

The following table is derived from the output of the # lsinput command (part of the input-utils package)

/dev path	name	phys	ev flags
/dev/input/event0	Power Button	PNP0C0C/button/input0	EV_SYN EV_KEY
/dev/input/event1	Lid Switch	PNP0C0D/button/input0	EV_SYN EV_SW
/dev/input/event2	Power Button	LNXPWRBN/button/input0	EV_SYN EV_KEY
/dev/input/event3	AT Translated Set 2 keyboard	isa0060/serio0/input0	EV_SYN EV_KEY EV_MSC EV_LED EV_REP
/dev/input/event4	ThinkPad Extra Buttons	thinkpad_acpi/input0	EV_SYN EV_KEY EV_MSC EV_SW
/dev/input/event5	Atmel Atmel maXTouch Digitizer	usb-0000:00:1a.0-1.1/input0	EV_SYN EV_KEY EV_ABS
/dev/input/event6	Integrated Camera	usb-0000:00:1d.0-1.6/button	EV_SYN EV_KEY
/dev/input/event7	Video Bus	LNXVIDEO/video/input0	EV_SYN EV_KEY
/dev/input/event8	SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad	isa0060/serio1/input0	EV_SYN EV_KEY EV_ABS
/dev/input/event9	HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=7	ALSA	EV_SYN EV_SW
/dev/input/event10	HDA Intel PCH HDMI/DP,pcm=3	ALSA	EV_SYN EV_SW
/dev/input/event11	HDA Intel PCH Mic	ALSA	EV_SYN EV_SW
/dev/input/event12	HDA Intel PCH Headphone	ALSA	EV_SYN EV_SW
/dev/input/event13	TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint	synaptics-pt/serio0/input0	EV_SYN EV_KEY EV_REL

Installing Ubuntu 12.10 on Thinkpad Twist

Contents

Overview

Specs

What Works

What Does Not Work

Install

Customize

Additional Packages

Graphics

Fix "unknown" graphics adapter

Enable SNA

Key Bindings

Toggling TouchPad

On Demand

Automatic

More Detail

XInput Method

GSettings Method

Think Light Control

Headphone Plug Events

Input Mapping

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