Popular Guides
View more guides at Linux Wiki Guides
Welcome to LinLap - The Linux Laptop Wiki
Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Tablet
Introduction
This is a template for a future guide to running Linux with the Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Tablet laptop. If you have the Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Tablet and are running Linux on it please consider editing this page or adding a comment below with your compatibility details. By contributing you will help other people running this laptop or trying to make a decision on whether to buy it or not.
This page is just for discussing using Linux on the Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Tablet. For a general discussion about this laptop you can visit the Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Tablet page on LapWik.
Editing This Page
If you would like to edit this page please first view our Editing Guidelines.
Specifications
For full specifications see the Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Tablet specifications page.
| Name | Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Tablet |
| Processor | Intel Core2 Duo Processor SU9400 : 1.4 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 3MB On-Die L2 Cache |
| Screen | 12.1” WXGA+ (1280×800) |
| Graphics | Intel GMA 4500MHD |
| RAM | Up to 3GB |
| HDD | 160GB - 7200rpm |
| Optical Drive | DVD Super Multi |
| Network | 10/100/1000 Intel WiFi Link 5100 802.11b/g/n |
Linux Compatibility
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Processor |  | Ubuntu 9.1, Fedora 12.0, openSUSE 11.2, openSUSE 12.3 |
| Screen |  | No problems with Gnome, KDE, Intel drivers |
| HDD | | No problems |
| Optical Drive | | External drive (IO Magic) |
| Graphics | | Compiz Ok on all distributions, full effects |
| Sound | | Just OK nothing great |
| Ethernet | | Very good on all distros tested |
| Wireless | | Very good on all distros tested |
| Modem | Not Tested | |
| USB | | Very good on all distros tested |
| Firewire | None | |
| Card Reader | | Ubuntu 10.04 |
| ExpressCard Slot | | Ubuntu 10.04 |
| Fingerprint Reader |  | No driver available - Lenovo changed supplier - Windows only |
| Webcam | | Ubuntu 10.04 |
| Keyboard | - | Need special drivers and a virtual keyboard program installed for tablet |
Notes
After talking with EmporerLinux (who does complex Linux installs for a price) I decided to go looking for a Linux to install. Currently I have Fedora 12 working with the basics of the laptop but I have lost the true tablet features. Here's what I found:
1- The best performing installs were Fedora 12 and Ubuntu 9.1 in that order, OpenSuse the worst.
2- The best overall install was OpenSuse 11.2 but it seemed the slowest in actual performance.
3- No system will recognize the finger print reader. Windows only drivers for now.
4- When installing Ubuntu needed additional Wacom drivers (not a problem to find).
5- KDE, Gnome and Compiz worked great. Graphics are fast.
6- Special tablet button features and keyboard are hard to configure.
The automatic features that come from flipping the table screen under Windows will not be completely functional. With Fedora 12 and Intel drivers I could get the screen to reorient manually but the mouse would not synch up with the change in format. I needed to find a special keyboard driver for Lenovo to get the Fn buttons to work.
I had to download a Virtual Keyboard program to use with the Wacom Pen. Only OpenSuse installed this automatically.
This may be the computer where you boot Linux from Windows and not the other way around. I found that the USB port is very touchy with external drives. It would be safer to use Lenovo brand equipment only.
I love the computer and hope for improvements in Linux soon. I intend to talk to the Novell Suse folks about the hardware details more news later.
Summary
The Lenovo Thinkpad X200 Tablet works well with Linux as a general laptop, but if you try to use it as your primary system you will lose tablet features.
Jim Adamski
Discussion
I installed openSUSE 12.3 on the X200 tablet, and it works reasonably well. Touch and pen devices recognized without any configuration (there are 4 X input devices: trackpoint, pen, eraser, touch). Out of the box, the hardware support seems to be not much worse than with Windows 8: 2 of the tablet buttons are easily configurable with the KDE desktop settings (the two others can be configured with xbindkeys, which is a bit more of a hassle), manually rotating the screen works well with the help of a small script which calls both xrender (for the screen rotation) and xsetwacom (for the pen/eraser/touch rotation), see thinkwiki for details. The combined Ericsson WWAN/bluetooth mini card is recognized, but I did not test it, fingerprint reader still unusable. Volume/mute keys seem to be unrecognized as well, did not dig into that yet. Need to test the power consumption in the long run.
I use one tablet button to alternate between “laptop” and portrait orientation, and the other to change to a special “touch” KDE activity (via dbus calls). This has its limitations, for example, I would like to be able to configure KDE panels particular to the touch activity, but it works. With programs like xournal, CellWriter and Easystroke, one can build an alright note taking Activity. No free software handwriting recognition I know of comes close to the Windows 7 one, though. I have openSUSE and Windows 8 in a dual boot setting… will be interesting to see what I use more (based on passed experience, I would bet on Linux, although the UI of Windows 8 works pretty OK on convertibles like this one).
How you solve this broblem with he brigtness? every X start my display ist 100%
could you link me to the driver you used for you're tablet? I'm having trouble finding one. Thanks