About half of my team including me received refreshed laptops a few

About half of my team including me received refreshed laptops a few
weeks ago. We made the push for Apple MacBooks again. Like the last
time we have new Lenovo ThinkPads.

The team ordered Core i7 T430s ThinkPads while one team member, Jim,
ordered the Core i7 W530. In retrospect I should have gone with the
X230, but I'm stuck with what I got. I pulled the factory hard drive
for a super fast SSD prior to powering up for the first time. I also
maxed out the RAM with 16GB. My initial Windows 7 install was
lackluster. Jim went straight to Ubuntu 12.04. He struggled with it a
bit. Oddly it was roughly as much as I was struggling with Windows 7.

I decided to follow him down the Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit path. Here I'll
try to document what we're doing on these two platforms. If this is
useful to you and/or you have changes to submit, please comment here.

First off, a lot of things worked out of the box: wired network,
wireless network, camera, sound, microphone, bluetooth, keyboard
backlight, keyboard light, sleep, power management, screen brightness,
driving two displays, touchpad, usb3.

UPDATED: [1]Hibernation works. [2]Hybrid sleep, too!

Things known not to work yet: fingerprint reader, Ricoh MMC/SD reader,
3G/4G activation (doesn't work on Windows, either)

Not yet tested: smartcard reader, thunderbolt, 3G/4G, [DEL: hibernation
(I read it's broken) :DEL]

Jim and I have the advantage of our old laptops. They still work so we
can experiment a bit without it impacting our ability to work.

BIOS

We did a few BIOS changes.

Under Config, Network make sure that Wake on LAN is disabled.

Under Config, Display make sure the Graphics Device is "Integrated
Graphics" unless you plan on a three headed display.

Under Config, Power enable "Power On with AC Attach"

Under Security, Virtualization make sure both options are enabled.

Ubuntu Install

The installer errored when I asked it to encrypt my home folder during
install.

If you have an Internet connection go ahead and have it install updates
during install. You'll still want to check for updates after you reboot
to complete the install.

Work Apps: Juniper NSM

We use Network Security-Manager and NetScreen Security Manager (NSM) to
manage Juniper devices. They require the ia32-libs metapackage to run.
Well, they don't need all of them but I'm not identifying each and
every library manually.

After installing ia32-libs, do the following:
sudo ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc-2.15.so /lib/libc.so.6
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libXp.so.6.2.0 /usr/lib/libXp.so.6

Work Apps: IBM Lotus Notes

While installing Notes in Ubuntu is an option, I decided to install it
in a Windows VM guest. You'll need the ia32-libs if you chose to run
Notes in Ubuntu.

Work Apps: Juniper SA & Network Connect

We also use the Juniper SA for remote access, so we need Network
Connect. I followed the instructions [3]here to get Juniper SA Network
Connect working. I used the OpenJDK 7 JRE and icedtea 7 plugin for the
browser.

UPDATE: I also installed ...
sudo apt-get install zlib1g:1386

Work Apps: VMWare Workstation

We're both evaluating VMWare Workstation for the few apps we need a
real Windows instance for. Version 9 installed perfectly. Windows 7 and
8 both install just fine. Unity, the VMWare mechanism for making a
guest app look like a host app, works well.

However, in Windows 8 the Windows/super key is indispensable. Ubuntu
Unity wants to pop-up and overlay with keyboard shortcuts, obscuring
the stuff behind it. If you have the CompizConfig Settings Manager
(CCSM, not recommended by Ubuntu), select Ubuntu Unity Plugin, go to
the "Experimental" tab and disable "Enable Shortcut Hints Overlay".

UPDATE: I had to add myself to the floppy group to get at my CDROM
drive. For some reason Ubuntu mounts it as /media/floppy0.

Power

I travel for work. If I carry this unfortunately heavier-than-my-last
laptop I want to maximize the battery life when detached. I want strong
performance when I'm powered.

In the Power settings under "On Battery Power" I suspend when inactive
for 10 minutes, power off when power is critically low, and suspend
when the lid is closed. When plugged in, I don't suspend when inactive
and do nothing when the lid is closed.

I install powertop, [DEL: thinkfan :DEL] , thinkpad-acpi-dkms, and
ethtool. Note that powertop gives you the best information when you're
on battery.

From the [4]Ubuntu Wiki:

Enable ALPM:
echo SATA_ALPM_ENABLE=true | sudo tee -a /etc/pm/config.d/sata_alpm

[DEL: I installed thinkfan for improved cooling with some help from
[5]here: :DEL]

[DEL: echo options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1 | sudo tee -a
/etc/modprobe.d/thinkfan.conf :DEL]

UPDATE: I'm now using thinkpad-acpi-dkms as thinkfan doesn't seem to
work any more. More information [6]here.

I disabled Wake-on-LAN on my ethernet interfaces: go [7]here and scroll
down to "For Ubuntu 12.04 (and up) users ..." and step 5.

UPDATE: The post is a little confusing and non-linear, so do the
following:
sudo cp /usr/lib/pm-utils/power.d/disable_wol /etc/pm/power.d
vi /etc/pm/power.d/disable_wol

... and change line 14 to look like ...
enable) ethtool -s "${d##*/}" wol d>/dev/null 2>&1;;

I remounted my root partition to turn off atime tracking:
sudo vi /etc/fstab

and add 'noatime' to make your root entry look like ...
UUID=4ba02cd9-d3c4-4dd1-9a30-6535fcba5290 / ext4 noatime,errors
=remount-ro 0 1

Display

Jim's W530

Jim dove into driving two external displays and the built-in display
with an extended desktop. He did a number of steps on his W530 from
[8]here.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-current
sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

... and on the line with "quiet splash" add "nox2apic" after "quiet".
Then do a ...
sudo update-grub

... and then reboot.

UPDATE: Enter the BIOS. Enable "Discrete Graphics" or "NVidia Optimus".
Jim has to log in twice to his desktop, which is odd.

Paul's T430s

I am trying to get the T430s to drive the displays without making the
GRUB changes. I know from the Windows 7 experience on this laptop that
you have to use DisplayPort for both of the external displays to drive
all three. When I did this with my initial install, I could run three
displays. However, the would all blank out then restore every 30
seconds or so.

Digging around a bit I found an article that discussed the Intel 4000
graphics chipset. The recommendation is to upgrade the kernel to the
version in 12.10. I decided to go straight to 12.10. Unfortunately my
work on getting some of my security tools installed made the upgrade
not work as it should have. I decided to reinstall fresh and
immediately upgrade to 12.10.

I noticed an immediate improvement after rebooting. The login screens
for the two displays I had connected - an external and the built-in
display - ran the correct (or close to) resolution for both. I made the
usual post-install display adjustments to turn off mirroring and drive
the external display at it's native resolution.

Bolstered by the good look I decided to plug my second external display
into the other DisplayPort. The mouse remained on the first two
displays but they were blank otherwise. I switched to a terminal
(Ctrl-Alt-F1) to do a 'sudo unity -reset' which unfortunately did
nothing. The option is depreciated. However, the terminal did display
on all three monitors. I rebooted, and all three displays showed the
login screen. I logged in, and all three had the desktop in mirror
mode.

I turned off "Mirror Displays" and they all show. When I tweak the
external displays' resolution I find I can't quite drive them at their
recommended resolution - 1680�1050 for one and 1920�1080 for the other.
Even redoing the displays at a lower resolution while maintaining the
aspect ratio didn't help. I replaced the larger display with one that
matches the other one.

After more experimentation I found that one of the DisplayPort to DVI
cables is bad. I'll have to test this out in the office on Monday.

UPDATE 25 Oct 12: I followed Jim's steps above on 12.04 and it worked!
For a while it worked, that is, and without the change to grub. I
undocked the laptop and re-docked but the displays wouldn't restore
properly. Then they would black out. No amount of rebooting or powering
off would bring it back.

UPDATE 31 OCT 12: I made changes to grub detailed [9]here. These
changes stabilized things.

Miscellaneous

Emacs

I'm an Emacs fan, especially of version 24. Follow the instructions
[10]here. Unfortunately Emacs 24 isn't available by default.

Firefox

Of course I followed my own advice and set up my [11]Widescreen
Firefox. One note is that under Ubuntu with the default Ubuntu add-ons
installed you do not need the "[12]Hide Forward/Back Buttons When not
Needed" Stylish script.

I keep looking for a way to make the Alt Text in Firefox, where you
mouse over a link in a web page and the full URL is displayed above the
status bar at the bottom of the Firefox window, much lighter than it is
by default. Out of the box it is black text on a dark gray background.
If anyone has a solution, please share.

Other

I'm a big [13]EverNote user. They do not have a Linux client yet, so I
wanted to use [14]NixNote. However, it required 32-bit Java. I'm trying
[15]EverPad instead.

To keep Ubuntu from popping up a window to upgrade,
gconftool-2 --set --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false

I also use aptitude, synergy, and a bunch of other tools. I write about
them from time to time.
__________________________________________________________________

My original entry is here: [16]Ubuntu on ThinkPad T430s (and W530). It
posted Sun, 21 Oct 2012 20:21:44 +0000.
Filed under: emacs, technology, travel, evernote, everpad, firefox,
InfoSec, juniper, Lenovo, nixnote, nsm, t430s, ThinkPad, Ubuntu,
vmware, w530,

References

1. http://prjorgensen.com/2012/11/01/hibernation-multi-head-display-w-ubuntu-12-04-on-lenovo-t430s/
2. http://prjorgensen.com/2012/11/29/ubuntu-12-04-hybrid-suspend-on-lenovo-t430s/
3. http://mad-scientist.us/juniper.html
4. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/PowerManagement/PowerSavingTweaks
5. http://blog.burntsushi.net/lenovo-thinkpad-t430-archlinux
6. http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/How_to_control_fan_speed
7. http://www.hecticgeek.com/2012/09/disabling-wake-on-lan-in-ubuntu-might-save-a-tiny-bit-of-power-on-your-laptop/
8. http://blog.pearce.org.nz/2012/08/enabling-external-monitor-on-lenovo.html
9. http://prjorgensen.com/2012/10/27/ubuntu-12-04-1-unity-3d-with-nvidia-optimus-on-t430s/
10. https://launchpad.net/~cassou/+archive/emacs
11. http://prjorgensen.com/2012/10/06/widescreen-firefox/
12. http://userstyles.org/styles/7577/hide-back-forward-buttons-when-not-needed
13. http://www.evernote.com/
14. http://sourceforge.net/projects/nevernote/
15. http://www.iloveubuntu.net/everpad-111-adds-new-all-notes-window-weblinks-support-and-fixes
16. https://www.prjorgensen.com/2012/10/21/ubuntu-on-thinkpad-t430s-and-w530/