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Lenovo B50-70
Introduction
This is a guide to running Linux with the Lenovo B50-70 laptop.
This guide is intended to provide you details on how well this laptop works with Linux and which modules you need to configure. For details on how to actually install and configure the required modules have a look at our guides section for distribution specific instructions.
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Specifications
| Name | Lenovo B50-70 |
| Processor | Intel® Core™ i7-4500U (3.0 GHz 2-core) Intel® Core™ i5-4200U (2.6 GHz 2-core) Intel® Core™ i3-4100U (1.8 GHz 2-core) Intel® Core™ i3-4010U (1.7 GHz 2-core) Intel® Core™ i3-4005U (1.7 GHz 2-core) Intel® Pentium® N3520 (2.4 GHz 4-core) Intel® Pentium® N2920 (2.0 GHz 4-core) Intel® Pentium® N2815 (2.1 GHz 2-core) |
| Screen | 15“ 1366×768 or 1920×1080 noneglare |
| RAM | 4GiB or 8 GiB (up to 16 GiB for the Intel® Core™ i CPUs and 8 GiB for the others) DDR3L |
| HDD | Western Digital SATA 1 TB (there are also 500 GB versions) |
| Optical Drive | SATA 9 mm ultra slim (9.5 mm HDD caddy fits into the slot) |
| Graphics | Intel® HD 4400 NVIDIA® GeForce® 820M (optional) AMD Radeon™ R5 M230 (optional) |
| Network | Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, Bluetooth) |
Linux Compatibility
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Yes | - |
| Screen | Yes | - |
| HDD | Yes | issues with installing in a caddy instead of the optical drive - see below |
| Optical Drive | Yes | - |
| Graphics Chip | Not tested | for Intel+ATI dual graphics |
| VGA Out | Yes | - |
| DVI Port | Not tested | - |
| HDMI Port | Not tested | - |
| DisplayPort | Not tested | - |
| Touch Screen | n.a. | - |
| Sound | Not tested | - |
| Bulti-in Microphone | Not Tested | - |
| Headphone Jack | Not Tested | - |
| Microphone Jack | n.a. | - |
| Ethernet | Yes | - |
| Wireless | Yes | - |
| Bluetooth | Not tested | - |
| WWAN | n.a. | - |
| Modem | n.a. | - |
| USB | Yes | 2xUSB 2.0,1xUSB 3.0 |
| ESATA | n.a. | - |
| Firewire | n.a. | - |
| Card Reader | Not tested | - |
| ExpressCard Slot | n.a. | - |
| Fingerprint Reader | n.a. | - |
| Webcam | Not tested | - |
| Smart Card Reader | n.a. | - |
| Docking Station | n.a. | - |
| Touch Pad | Yes | Synaptics |
| Track Point | n.a. | - |
| Fingerprint Reader | n.a. | - |
| Suspend/Resume | Yes | - |
Notes
A nice laptop which comes in many different versions in terms of CPU, RAM, HDD and graphics, with or without pre-installed Windows (non-Windows versions have FreeDOS installed).
Summary
Archlinux boot medium boots with Secure Boot enabled if no Windows installed. Otherwise, it's necessary to disable Secure Boot, which is possible after selecting UEFI only option on the Boot tab - a Secure Boot option appears then on the Security tab in the setup.
It works without problems with a systemd built-in bootloader - for GPT partitions and UEFI in non-Legacy mode GRUB is not needed (although it's possible to use it), the systemd bootloader displays a boot menu where you can choose Windows if dual booting.
No problems with brightness adjustment and with the touchpad (after installing Synaptics drivers from repo), as well as with networking.
In an Intel+ATI version of graphics the Intel adapter is active by default, the ATI one is detected. I haven't tried yet to make switching possible.
When an extra HDD installed instead of the optical drive, it gets detected but it is not going to work (SATA link down message in dmesg). The solution is to add a line forcing 1.5 Gbps transfer instead of 6 Gbps to the kernel boot parameters (how to do it depends on the bootloader).
It's difficult to separate the front bezel from the optical drive e.g. when you want to replace it with a caddy for a hard drive. I do not recommend opening it's case when you think it may help. You are risking making a mess in the tray opening mechanism, you may lose small parts easily or have no idea how to assemble it back. And it does not help at all. Just pull the bezel with a bit of force (yes, you may break the latches, but I can't see any other option).
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