Lenovo ThinkPad T470
For a general overview of laptop-related articles and recommendations, see Laptop.
| Device | PCI/USB ID | Working? |
|---|---|---|
| GPU (Intel 620) | 8086:5916 | Yes |
| GPU (Intel 520) | 8086:1916 | Yes |
| GPU (NVIDIA) | 10de:134d | Yes |
| Ethernet (Intel I219-V) | 8086:2068 | Yes |
| Ethernet (Intel I219-LM) | 8086:156f | Yes |
| Wireless (Intel 8265/8275) | 8086:24fd | Yes |
| Wireless (Intel 8260) | 8086:24f3 | Yes |
| Bluetooth | 8087:0a2b | Yes |
| Webcam | 5986:111c | Yes |
| IR Camera | Yes | |
| TrackPoint | Yes | |
| Touchpad | Yes | |
| Touchscreen | Yes | |
| Fingerprint Reader | Yes | |
| SD Card Reader | Untested | |
Firmware
The T470 is one of the models supported officially by Lenovo through the fwupd firmware update program.
If you are using a UEFI boot scheme, this is probably the easiest and most officially supported way to keep all the firmware programs updated.
If it does not work for you or if you prefer these methods, it is still possible to do the BIOS update by booting on a specially crafted disk or USB stick. By visiting the downloads section (T470) an ISO can be downloaded and burned to disk which will perform the update from Lenovo. Or extracted and copied on a USB Stick.
Another option that works if you got a CD-ISO from Lenovo is to follow this guide and convert the ISO to an IMG prior to dd-ing it to a USB stick.
Kernel and hardware support
Hardware video acceleration with Kaby Lake seems to work fine via va-api.
As noted in Intel graphics, the driver seems to cause more issue than the builtin Xorg driver. Works fine without the intel driver (on a Skylake configuration).
suspend-resume results in the fan holding at 100% without ever spinning down. This is being tracked on the kernel bugtracker. The issue seems to be resolved by BIOS 1.43.
Fingerprint reader
As of writing this, the fingerprint reader is still under prototype development, but seems working fine on the T470.
To get the sensor working, install the package, and its dependencies: and (which conflicts with the package in the official repositories, so remove this package first if it is installed). Enable/start the .
If this fingerprint reader had been previously set up, either through Windows (dual-booted or through a Windows virtual machine), or from a previous setup of fprintd, you will likely need to reset the Validity fingerprint reader to factory defaults (must first stop ):
Then, start again. You can now enroll your fingers with fprintd-enroll as a regular (non-root) user. You may verify your enrolled fingerprints with .
After setting up the fingerprint sensor is complete, one can use it to login or authenticate for sudo or .
For login, edit by adding as sufficient to the top of the auth section:
Note, the command from the python-validity README.md does not exist in Arch, and the lines it adds to files in the directory do not work. See the manual for details.
Do the same for sudo with or su with /etc/pam.d/su
Screen backlight
Without the driver (), neither or brightness control are working. It is possible that, with the good kernel parameters, the backlight related keys do their job.
Other workaround exists, such as described on this post or in the wiki acpid#Enabling backlight control. Using the acpilight package as a replacement works well. You can also check this repository as a base to add the ACPI rules to call when backlight keys are pressed.
UEFI boot
After configuring the BIOS setup to allow UEFI boot (either UEFI only or both), it works flawlessly.
For booting directly with EFISTUB, the kernel executable (e.g. ) may need to be renamed with a .efi extension (e.g. ) otherwise it will fail to load.
BIOS GPT boot
I can confirm that issue. Even with a recent bios (1.52), it does not work.
I had to trick my ThinkPad into UEFI (because my bios is locked, found that method by pure luck).
It works by installing the syslinux bootloader on your freshly installed arch (be sure to follow the GPT specific instructions at Syslinux#GUID partition table) and the boot that syslinux with the arch install iso ('Boot existing OS' -> press -> replace hd0 0 with ). Syslinux should show you an option to boot the Arch Linux installation in UEFI mode. Mount you Arch installation, into it and install GRUB (or your favorite bootloader) for UEFI. That did the trick for me.
You have to create a proper UEFI partition. Have a look at partitioning.
Special buttons
Some special buttons are not supported by X server due to keycode number limit.
| Key combination | Scancode | Keycode |
|---|---|---|
0x45 |
You can remap unsupported keys using udev hwdb:
/etc/udev/hwdb.d/90-thinkpad-keyboard.hwdb
evdev:name:ThinkPad Extra Buttons:dmi:bvn*:bvr*:bd*:svnLENOVO*:pn* KEYBOARD_KEY_45=prog1 KEYBOARD_KEY_49=prog2
Update hwdb after editing the rule.
# udevadm hwdb --update # udevadm trigger --sysname-match="event*"
Function keys for model 20K7 25th Anniversary Edition
| Special Key | Visible?1 | Marked?2 | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | Yes | XF86WakeUp | |
| No Effect | |||
| Yes | Yes | XF86ScreenSaver | |
| Yes | Yes | XF86Battery | |
| Yes | Yes | XF86Sleep | |
| Yes | Yes | XF86TouchpadToggle | |
Fn+F6 | Yes | Yes | XF86WebCam |
| Yes | Yes | XF86Display | |
| Yes | Yes | XF86WLAN | |
Fn+F9 | Yes | Yes | XF86Tools |
| Yes | Yes | XF86Bluetooth | |
| Yes | No Effect | ||
| Yes | Yes | XF86Favorites | |
| Yes | XF86MonBrightnessUp | ||
| Yes | XF86MonBrightnessDown | ||
| Yes | Cycle Keyboard Backlight | ||
| Yes | Yes | XF86AudioMute | |
| Yes | Yes | XF86AudioLowerVolume | |
Volume Up | Yes | Yes | XF86AudioRaiseVolume |
| Yes | Yes | XF86AudioMicMute | |
| Yes | Yes | XF86AudioPrev | |
| Yes | Yes | XF86AudioStop | |
Fn+Down | Yes | Yes | XF86AudioPlay |
| Yes | Yes | XF86AudioNext | |
| Yes | Yes | Menu | |
| Yes | Yes | XF86Back | |
| Yes | Yes | XF86Forward |
- The key is visible to and similar tools
- The physical key has a symbol on it, which describes its function