Today's phlog entry is about how to

Today's phlog entry is about how to
set up a ThinkPad L440 running Debian
LXDE. The tutorial deals with the
following issues:

* screen brightness keys
* touchpad setup
* window snapping
* sharp fonts

The information here should be
relevant to all *40 ThinkPads.

I'm posting this here for my own
future reference, but I know that
there are other ThinkPad users around
gopherspace, so I might as well share
the details.

NETINSTALL / WIFI SETUP
=======================

The net install iso is great for
installing LXDE. It presents you with
a choice of desktops at some
point in the installation
procedure.

During installation, the wifi works
and the wifi hardware is identified
for you. Write down the name of the
hardware. Mine was:

rtlwifi/rtl8192eefw.bin

After reboot, the wifi will no longer
work properly, because it depends on
non-free firmware. You'll need to plug
in your ethernet, add the contrib and
non-free repos to the
/etc/apt/sources.list lines, and
install the wifi firmware.

I found the correct driver by typing:

apt-get update
apt-cache search rtlwifi

Then just install the firmware. For
me, this involved the following
installation:

apt-get install firmware-realtek

Use synaptic to do this part if you
prefer the GUI.

SCREEN BRIGHTNESS KEY SETUP
===========================

The sound buttons on the L440 work
with LXDE out of the box. The screen
brightness buttons do not. In order to
get them working, install the
xbacklight and xbindkeys packages.

Then follow these instructions[1]:

Check your /sys/class/backlight
folder. If you can see an
intel_backlight folder there ... then
creating a /etc/X11/xorg.conf file
with the below configuration should
work for you.

Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
Option "Backlight" "intel_backlight"
EndSection

You might need to log out and back in
before you conduct the next test.

Open a terminal and type "xbacklight
-10" without the quotation marks. The
screen should dim a little. You can
bump up the brightness by typing
"xbacklight +10".

Now that you've verified that
xbacklight works, create a file in
your home directory called
xbindkeysrc with the leading period.

Enter the following in the file:

#BrightnessUp
"xbacklight +10"
XF86MonBrightnessUp

#BrightnessDown
"xbacklight -10"
XF86MonBrightnessDown

Save the file. Now the brightness keys
(F5 and F6) should work to raise and
lower your screen brightness. If they
don't, try logging out and logging
back in.

TOUCHPAD SETUP
==============

This one drove me crazy. I must have
spent three or four hours on it. It
turns out that it's really easy. I
have the original clunkpad in my L440.
Since no ThinkPad in the *40 series
has proper bottom buttons, regardless
of whether you switch to the *50
series trackpad or not, I wanted to
set up the clickpad sensibly, like a
mac, where a one-finger click anywhere
is a 'left click' and a two-finger
click is a 'right click'.

All that's required to make the change
is to add one line to the file
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf

Find the section that looks like this:

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "libinput"
EndSection

Add this line after Driver "libinput":

Option "ClickMethod" "clickfinger"

So in the end, the section will look
like this:

Section "InputClass"
Identifier "libinput touchpad catchall"
MatchIsTouchpad "on"
MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
Driver "libinput"
Option "ClickMethod" "clickfinger"
EndSection

That's it.

See the following link for more
libinput configuration details:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Libinput#Button_re-mapping

WINDOW SNAPPING
===============

I like to be able to "snap" my windows
to half-screen (left or right),
full-screen, or minimized state by
holding down the Windows Key and
pressing the arrow keys.

You can achieve this behaviour by
editing ~/.config/openbox/lxde-rc.xml

Add the following text[2] just prior
to the line that says ""


<keybind key="W-Left"> # HalfLeftScreen
<action name="UnmaximizeFull"/>
<action name="MoveResizeTo"><x>0</x><y>0</y><height>100%</height><width>50%</width></action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="W-Right"> # HalfRightScreen
<action name="UnmaximizeFull"/>
<action name="MoveResizeTo"><x>-0</x><y>0</y><height>100%</height><width>50%</width></action>
</keybind>
<keybind key="W-Up">
<action name="MaximizeFull"/>
</keybind>
<keybind key="W-Down">
<action name="Iconify"/>
</keybind>


Once you set up window snapping like
this, you'll wonder how you got along
without it.

SHARPFONTS
==========

Linux fonts are a lot better than they
used to be, but they're still not
great, and they're not hard to fix. A
long time ago, there was a website
dedicated to installing sharper
fonts[3] on Linux. It's gone, but you
can still get fonts and the scripts.

If you like the old, very crisp fonts
from the Windows XP era, you'll want
to make these mods.

First login as root and install the
microsoft true type fonts, as follows:

apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Then get the following file:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130501222012/http://www.osresources.com/files/centos-windows-fonts/fontconfig.tbz

Navigate into the directory with the
fontsconfig.tbz file, and execute the
following command:

tar xvjpf fontconfig.tbz -C /etc/fonts/

Log out and log back in. You can fine
tune the fonts by going to the LXDE
Menu > Preferences > Customize Look
and Feel > Fonts Tab.

If you don't like the change, just
navigate into fontconfig.tbz, note the
names of the four files within the
folder, and then remove them from
/etc/fonts.

But I think you're going to like it.

COMPTON
========

To install compton (for terminal transparency)

apt-get install compton compton-conf
nano ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/autostart

Add to the end of the file:

@/usr/bin/compton

BLUETOOTH
==========

apt-get install blueman

Then log out / log in

FILE MANAGER ACCESS TO SERVERS
==============================

To allow PCmanFM and Nautilus ("Files") to mount FTP, SMB, etc.

apt-get install gvfs-backends

[1] https://superuser.com/questions/1279727/xfce-change-brightness-steps-and-or-change-brightness-key-behavior

[2] I believe this is the source for the original scripting: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2076433

[3] www.sharpfonts.com