Lenovo ThinkPad Helix - ArchWiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Lenovo_Th...

Lenovo ThinkPad Helix

Hardware Information

Form Factor Tablet/Ultrabook Convertible (detachable keyboard dock)

Display 11.6" 1920x1080 LCD with Capacitive and Pen Digitizers

CPU 3rd Generation (Ivy Bridge) Core i5-3427U or i7-3667U

RAM 4GiB (i5) or 8GiB (i7) DDR3L RAM (dependent upon CPU)

Storage 128/160/256GB mSATA SSD

WiFi Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205S mPCI WLAN

Bluetooth Broadcom BCM20702 Bluetooth 4.0 (USB connected)

Camera 5MP Rear and 2MP Front (also USB)

For the the second generation of Helx hardware (models 20CG and 20CH), see
Levovo ThinkPad Helix 2nd Gen.

Contents
1 Installation
2 Hardware Configuration
2.1 Bluetooth
2.2 Digitizers
2.2.1 Udev Configuration
2.2.2 Xorg Configuration
2.2.3 Touchscreen / Wacom Tips & Tricks
2.2.3.1 thinkpad-helix-utils: Toggle Touch
2.2.3.2 xnohands
2.3 Sensors
2.4 Screen Rotation
2.5 Enable SSD TRIM
3 BIOS/Firmware Updates

Installation

Note: As this model includes no physical recovery media, it's highly

recommended to create a Windows reinstallation flash drive just in case using
the recovery media creation tool included with your preinstalled Windows
system.

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Due to the fact that there is no optical drive, you need to install Arch from
USB stick.

The Arch install media will happily boot under UEFI, so it is recommended to
disable legacy boot in the system setup utility. If legacy boot is needed for
some reason, it does work fine as well.

Booting using Systemd-boot works perfectly. Again, if legacy boot is needed,

GRUB is perfectly functional as well.

Hardware Configuration
To fully support all hardware in X, one needs to ensure that the following
driver packages are installed:

xf86-input-synaptics (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?name=xf86-input-synaptics)
(for the clickpad)
xf86-input-wacom (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?name=xf86-input-wacom) (for
the digitizers)
xf86-video-intel (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?name=xf86-video-intel) (for
the GPU)
iio-sensor-proxy (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/iio-sensor-proxy/)AUR
(accelerometer/gyroscope, ambient light sensor, digital campass)

Bluetooth

If the Broadcom USB device isn't showing up, you likely need to turn it on with
echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/rfkill/rfkill0/state

Digitizers

The Lenovo Helix comes with the following input devices (the ids may not be
the same on your system):

$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]
⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen stylus id=15 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ Atmel Atmel maXTouch Digitizer id=16 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad id=18 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint id=19 [slave pointer (2)]
⎜ ↳ Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen eraser id=21 [slave pointer (2)]

A Wacom USB device recognized by the xf86-input-wacom (https://www.archlinux.org

/packages/?name=xf86-input-wacom) driver will create multiple X input devices from a
single kernel device. In the Lenovo Helix's case, three such X input devices are
created when properly configured:

Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen stylus

Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen eraser

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Atmel Atmel maXTouch Digitizer

The Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen stylus xinput device is recognized by the xf86-
input-wacom (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?name=xf86-input-wacom) driver out of
the box. However, additional Udev and Xorg configuration is required to
recognize the Atmel Atmel maXTouch Digitizer touchscreen device as well
as Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen eraser input if using a pen with an eraser function.

Udev Configuration

With an up-to-date Arch install, install the following packages:

libwacom (https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?name=libwacom)
wacom-udev (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wacom-udev/)AUR[broken link:
archived in aur-mirror (https://github.com/felixonmars/aur3-mirror/tree/master
/wacom-udev)]

The wacom-udev (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/wacom-udev/)AUR[broken link: archived

in aur-mirror (https://github.com/felixonmars/aur3-mirror/tree/master/wacom-udev)]
package installs the additional Udev rules. The libwacom (https://www.archlinux.org
/packages/?name=libwacom) package is suggested by some graphics applications to
see the additional inputs.

Udev should automatically detect the changes if already running. But, you may
want to reboot your system to verify the changes stick.

Additionally, you may want to read the Wacom tablet#Dynamic with udev
section to ensure the two wacom input devices are found. On this Helix system,
it looks like this:

$ ls -l /dev/input/wacom*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 Jan 20 15:32 /dev/input/wacom -> event5
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 Jan 20 15:32 /dev/input/wacom- -> event5

These two inputs are the pen and eraser, respectfully.

You can also see if the touchscreen was detected properly:

$ ls -l /dev/input/tablet-*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 6 Jan 20 15:32 tablet-tpc-ec- -> event5

With these three inputs, you can continue to the next section to configure Xorg.

Xorg Configuration

Next, you'll need to tell Xorg to use the new inputs. The xf86-input-wacom
(https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?name=xf86-input-wacom) driver package has an up-
to-date list of devices that the Helix has. But, the package does not install the
updated list by default. You'll need to link it for Xorg to see them:

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# ln -s /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-wacom.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-wacom.conf

Once done with all the above, reboot and you verify xinput list looks the same
as the above.

Touchscreen / Wacom Tips & Tricks

If you find yourself frustrated by the capacitive digitizer while trying to use the
pen, there are a few options as outlined below that can help.

thinkpad-helix-utils: Toggle Touch

The thinkpad-helix-utils (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/thinkpad-helix-utils/)AUR

package contains a script located at /usr/bin/helix-toggle-touch that will toggle
the capacitive digitizer on and off with a simple command using Xorg's xinput
function. It also installs a desktop file called Toggle Touch that can be used to
toggle xinput on and off with the pen.

Once activated, it disables the touchscreen xinput device until it is ran again to
re-activate it.

xnohands

Another option that also uses Xorg's xinput is xnohands

(http://sourceforge.net/projects/xournal/files/xnohands/). This utility
disables the touch device in a system when a stylus is detected (either pen or
eraser) and re-enables the touchscreen once then stylus is pulled away from
the screen. It does this by listening to the digitizer's "presence" event, which
the Helix's Wacom ISDv4 EC input devices support. You'll need to download
and extract it. Follow the README for instructions as it outlines how to set it
up.

NOTE: You must have followed the udev and xorg configuration instructions
earlier to have both the Pen and Eraser detected, as well as the touchscreen
(all three must be detected); or else, this tool will not work.

If you want it always running, install the desktop file in your autostart to have
it run on startup:

$ cp xnohands.desktop ~/.config/autostart/

Please note that you can have both the thinkpad-helix-utils Toggle Touch and
xnohands installed; but, do not use both at the same time. xnohands will "re-
activate" the touchscreen as soon as you pull the pen away from the screen,
defeating the purpose of Toggle Touch to keep touch disabled at all times.

Sensors

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For X11 to utilize, install the AUR package iio-sensor-proxy

(https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/iio-sensor-proxy/)AUR to expose the dbus events.
For example, gnome (https://www.archlinux.org/groups/x86_64/gnome/) will
automatically utilize the dbus events exposed by the iio-sensor-proxy
(https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/iio-sensor-proxy/)AUR package to:

Adjust the display brightness when moving from dark to bright lighting
Automatically rotate the display based on orientation.

See the upstream source for more information about iio-sensor-proxy

(https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/iio-sensor-proxy/)AUR and how to configure/test
its functionality.

Screen Rotation

If you have both digitizers configured through the xf86-input-wacom

(https://www.archlinux.org/packages/?name=xf86-input-wacom) driver and the iio-sensor-
proxy (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/iio-sensor-proxy/)AUR package, they will
automatically rotate with the display.

Alternatively, you can use a simple command like

xrandr --output eDP1 --rotate left to rotate the screen with ease.

If you want to use the bezel buttons (or some other hotkey) to cycle through
orientations (or toggle between two specific ones), helix-rotate , also from from
thinkpad-helix-utils (https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/thinkpad-helix-utils/)AUR,
provides an easy-to-bind command that may serve your needs well.

There is also Magick Rotation (https://launchpad.net/magick-rotation/),

which is supposed to automatically rotate the screen based on input events,
but it only seems to respond to docking/undocking the tablet.

Enable SSD TRIM

The built in 128 GB and 256 GB mSATA SSDs included with the Helix all
support SSD TRIM functions.

Follow the Solid State Drives#TRIM instructions to enable trim. For

example, one could use fstrim and set it up weekly like so:

# systemctl enable fstrim.timer

# systemctl start fstrim.timer

If using fstrim.timer , you can check the history of when the timer was run with:

$ journalctl -u fstrim.service
-- Logs begin at Thu 2016-01-07 15:55:34 EST, end at Mon 2016-02-01 15:28:22 EST. --
Jan 25 00:48:58 kodiak systemd[1]: Starting Discard unused blocks...
Jan 25 00:49:00 kodiak systemd[1]: Started Discard unused blocks.

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-- Reboot --
Feb 01 00:07:13 kodiak systemd[1]: Starting Discard unused blocks...
Feb 01 00:07:19 kodiak systemd[1]: Started Discard unused blocks.

BIOS/Firmware Updates
Helpfully, Lenovo now provides bootable ISO images
(http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads
/detail.page?DocID=DS034628) for the purpose of installing BIOS updates.
While it is not stated on their site, these bootable images also include updated
firmware for the keyboard dock MPU. It is uncertain as to whether the USB
hub firmware is also updated via this utility.

Note: While the update utility states that all expansion units should be
disconnected, it is only referring to external (USB and DisplayPort) devices.
Ensure that the tablet is in the dock and connected only to AC power and the
utility boot media before starting the process.

If you do not have access to a USB optical drive and writable media, the
information on ThinkWiki (http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/BIOS_Upgrade
/X_Series) is extremely helpful.

Retrieved from "https://wiki.archlinux.org

/index.php?title=Lenovo_ThinkPad_Helix&oldid=520017"

This page was last edited on 2 May 2018, at 21:08.

Content is available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 or later
unless otherwise noted.

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