vuxu.org: rhea

Rhea is a Lenovo T480, Type 20L5CT01WW with an i7-8550U (1.8Ghz, 4 cores, hyperthreading, VT-x, VT-d), 48G RAM, 512 GB SSD (WDC PC SN720).

The naming

Rhea, titaness goddess of female fertility, motherhood and generation.

Rough setup

  • Flash BIOS version 1.19 (was 1.17) Get it from https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/de/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-t-series-laptops/thinkpad-t480-type-20l5-20l6/downloads.

    Use geteltorito -o bios.img n24ur09w.iso and dd bios.img it raw on a stick. Flashing takes amazingly long for 21MB.

  • Enable “Fn and Ctrl Key swap” in BIOS (Config -> Keyboard/Mouse).

  • Enable “F1-F12 as Primary Function” in BIOS (Config -> Keyboard/Mouse).

  • Disable Secure Boot (Security -> Secure Boot).

  • Enable Legacy Boot (Startup -> UEFI/Legacy Boot).

  • Boot hrmpf-x86_64-4.14.10_1-20180102.iso.

  • Partition scheme: We use fdisk as usual, but we also encrypt /boot. So we need a 1MB partition for GRUB stage 1. (This turned out to be false, the gap when the first partition starts at sector 2048 is enough).

      nvme0n1p1 1M (active)
      nvme0n1p2 2G /boot
      nvme0n1p3 475G LVM
    
    
      luksFormat nvme0n1p2 and nvme0n1p3 with LUKS 1 defaults.
    
    
      mkfs.ext2 -L boot /dev/mapper/cryptboot
    
    
      pvcreate /dev/mapper/cryptlvm
      vgcreate ssd /dev/mapper/cryptlvm
    
    
      lvcreate -n vroot -L 40G ssd
      lvcreate -n home -L 64G ssd
      lvcreate -n data -L 256G ssd
      lvcreate -n swap -L 8G ssd
    
    
      mkfs.ext4 -L vroot /dev/mapper/ssd-vroot
      mkfs.ext4 -L home /dev/mapper/ssd-home
      mkfs.ext4 -L data /dev/mapper/ssd-data
      mkswap -L swap /dev/mapper/ssd-swap
    
    
      xi -Su xtools
      ... mkdir and mount stuff under /mnt
      xvoidstrap /mnt
    
    
      GRUB_ENABLE_CRYPTODISK=y
      add cryptboot to /etc/crypttab
    
    
      useradd leah
    

Hacks

  • Fix Intel CPU Throttling on Linux, this needs more researching.

  • Make the Print key work as compose:

    xmodmap -e 'keycode 107 = Multi_key'
    
  • Allow dragging with middle mouse button:

    xinput set-prop 'TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint' 'libinput Scroll Method Enabled' 0 0 0
    
  • Change backlight with xbindkeys:

    "xbacklight +10"
      XF86MonBrightnessUp
    "xbacklight -10"
      XF86MonBrightnessDown
    

RAM upgrade

On 2021-06-07 I added 32GB RAM into the empty second slot. (Mushkin D4S32GB 2666-19 Essentials 1,2v MSK, 32GB, DDR4-2666, SO-DIMM 260 pin, 154,71€ from Galaxus).

Changelog

  • 28jan2020: Flash BIOS version 1.30 (was 1.19).
  • 07jun2021: RAM upgrade.
  • 03jul2023: Replaced the removable battery (unbranded, 46.89€).