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Lenovo ThinkPad X230
Introduction
The configuration tested has a Core i5-3360M, a 128GB SSD, IPS display and Intel N-6205 wireless.
The OS used is Fedora 17 (Linux 3.4.4).
This page is just for discussing using Linux on the Lenovo ThinkPad X230. For a general discussion about this laptop you can visit the Lenovo ThinkPad X230 page on LapWik.
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Specifications
For full specifications see the Lenovo ThinkPad X230 specifications page.
| Name | Lenovo ThinkPad X230 |
| Processor | Intel Core i7-3520M (2.90 GHz, 4MB L3, 1600MHz FSB) Intel Core i5-3360M (2.80 GHz, 3MB L3, 1600MHz FSB) Intel Core i5-3320M (2.60 GHz, 3MB L3, 1600MHz FSB) |
| Screen | 12.5” 1366×768 Widescreen |
| RAM | Up to 16GB |
| HDD | Up to 500GB |
| Optical Drive | None |
| Graphics | Intel HD Graphics 4000 |
| Network | 10/100/1000 Ethernet ThinkPad b/g/n Wireless (1×1 BGN) Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2200 (2×2 BGN) Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 (2×2 AGN) |
Linux Compatibility
| Device | Compatibility | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | Works | |
| Screen | Works | |
| SSD | Works | |
| Integrated Graphics Chip | Works | |
| VGA Out | Works | |
| DisplayPort | Works | |
| Sound | Works | |
| Built-in Microphone | Works | |
| Headphone Jack | Works | |
| Volume/mute buttons | Works | |
| Function keys | Works | |
| Microphone Jack | Works | |
| Ethernet | Works | |
| Wireless | Works | |
| Bluetooth | Works | Use blueman. |
| WWAN | Not Tested | |
| Modem | Not Tested | |
| USB | Works | |
| Card Reader | Works | |
| ExpressCard Slot | Not Tested | |
| Webcam | Works | |
| Smart Card Reader | Works | |
| Docking Station | Works | |
| Touch Pad | Works | Two-finger scrolling is good |
| Track Point | Works | |
| Suspend/Resume | Works | |
| Fingerprint Reader | Works | Works with libfprint from git |
| Intel WiDi | Doesn't work |
Notes
You can enter any specific notes with running Linux on the Lenovo ThinkPad X230 here.
Wifi
The Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (3×3 AGN) is a bit unstable.
This can help temporarly:
sudo modprobe -r iwlwifi
sudo modprobe iwlwifi 11n_disable=1
This hint was found here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1978457
Summary
This is an excellent laptop if you want to run Linux. So far, everything I have tried works
out of the box.
Discussion
does hibernate work for anyone (pm-hibernate)?
Does audio work over displayport?
Using Slackware 14.0 and I had a few problems. Firstly, udev would stall for about 20 seconds before booting, the entire system would freeze up at irregular intervals, and there was an issue with the webcam with regard to normalization. I've built and installed a later kernel, and I'm happy to say that the first two issues are fixed. Unfortunately, the webcam doesn't work at all now (the /dev/video0 device node isn't there). Any idea how I can get the webcam working well?
Turns out I just didn't build the v4l2 modules with the kernel, so the webcam's working now. There's still a strange colour issue though, which mplayer seems to pick up:
[C]v4l2: your device driver does not support VIDIOC_G_STD ioctl, VIDIOC_G_PARM was used instead.
Selected device: Integrated Camera
Capabilities: video capture streaming
supported norms:
inputs: 0 = Camera 1;
Current input: 0
Current format: YUYV
v4l2: ioctl set format failed: Invalid argument
v4l2: ioctl set format failed: Invalid argument
v4l2: ioctl set format failed: Invalid argument
tv.c: norm_from_string(pal): Bogus norm parameter, setting default.
v4l2: ioctl enum norm failed: Invalid argument
Error: Cannot set norm![/C]
Any ideas?
X230 here, I installed the iwl2000-firmware package availble in fedora-updates-testing repo. Rebooted and so far wifi is working just fine.
Intel(R) Centrino(R) Wireless-N 2200 BGN
# sudo nano /etc/yum.repos.d/fedora-updates-testing.repo
In the [updates-testing] section, change Enabled=0 to Enabled=1
# sudo yum install iwl2000-firmware
After the install, I disabled the repo and did a reboot.
Hi,
I'm having a problem with the SD reader, I get this upon inserting a card (kernel 3.6):
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.012035] mmc0: new SDHC card at address aaaa
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.017982] mmcblk0: mmc0:aaaa SU32G 29.7 GiB
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.019920] mmcblk0: p1
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.088533] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 952, nr 8, cmd response 0x900, card status 0xb00
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.088541] mmcblk0: retrying using single block read
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.092516] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 960, nr 8, cmd response 0x900, card status 0xb00
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.092524] mmcblk0: retrying using single block read
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.120794] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 10240, nr 8, cmd response 0x900, card status 0xb00
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.120802] mmcblk0: retrying using single block read
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.121276] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 10240, nr 8, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.121280] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 10240
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.121764] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 10241, nr 7, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.121769] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 10241
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.122223] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 10242, nr 6, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.122229] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 10242
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.122821] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 10243, nr 5, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.122827] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 10243
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.123312] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 10244, nr 4, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.123316] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 10244
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.124612] Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk0p1, logical block 256
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.135940] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9360, nr 72, cmd response 0x900, card status 0xb00
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.135954] mmcblk0: retrying using single block read
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.137190] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9362, nr 70, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.137194] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 9362
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.137659] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9363, nr 69, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.137664] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 9363
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.138137] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9364, nr 68, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.138142] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 9364
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.138637] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9365, nr 67, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.138647] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 9365
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.139134] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9366, nr 66, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.139139] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 9366
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.139602] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9367, nr 65, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.139607] Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk0p1, logical block 146
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.140039] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9368, nr 64, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.140540] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9369, nr 63, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.141029] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9370, nr 62, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.141746] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9371, nr 61, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.142280] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9372, nr 60, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.142763] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9373, nr 59, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.143243] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9374, nr 58, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.143714] mmcblk0: error -84 transferring data, sector 9375, nr 57, cmd response 0x900, card status 0x0
Dec 17 21:17:10 debian kernel: [136810.143719] Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk0p1, logical block 147
And of course the device is unreadable.
Did anyone see something similar?
Does anyone got the power button working (acpi shutdown)?
You have to hold power button some seconds.
It looks like alsactl automixing might not work properly with ubuntu quantal, 12.10.
agreed.
Things that don't work for me:
- the power button is not readable via acpi, really weird
- the leds can't be controlled
I installed Fedora 17 on my Thinkpad x230 and it does not detect wireless/wifi, only wired connection is shown.
lspci| grep Network Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2200 (2×2 BGN). Please help me
Not sure about Fedora, but for Debian wheezy (testing) I used the iwlwifi driver. This is available in the non-free repository, package “firmware-iwlwifi”. This was not part of the firmware tarball so I had to install Debian using a wired network connection, then apt-get install this package later. Seems to work fine.
having fedora here too,
everything worked fine from the start.
left windows on the machine though and had lubuntu installed earlier,
guess this may have solved the driver fuckup?
really dont have that great understanding of the driver snafu on linux.
really enjoying my laptop btw,
just had to script the volume buttons myself in the awesome(wm) rc.lua
now i want to add screen dimming but have no idea where to search for it :)
anyways, have fun :)
spammie
FYI, the link to the iwlwifi firmware is [1] and the specific download for the Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2200 is [2].
Steps:
(a) download [2]
(b) gunzip iwlwifi-2000-ucode-18.168.6.1.tgz
© tar xvf iwlwifi-2000-ucode-18.168.6.1.tar
(d) sudo cp iwlwifi-2000-ucode-18.168.6.1/iwlwifi-2000-6.ucode /lib/firmware/
(e) reboot
[1] http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/iwlwifi
[2] http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/iwlwifi?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=iwlwifi-2000-ucode-18.168.6.1.tgz
I tried the microphone jack and it works (with smartphone style headphones)