Configuring Arch Linux on Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen7

For installation notes check installation guide e.g. on X1C6. These notes focus on configuring the OS to work with X1C7 and assume that you have already successfully installed the basic Arch Linux distribution.

Finally, as per unwritten Arch Linux community rules apparently these tips/guides should not exists in the first place so do not read this. These are my own personal notes.

Configuring Arch Linux on Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen7
Basic survival commands
Configuring
Work in Progress / NOTES:
Appendix

Basic survival commands

There are few stuff that gets done repeatedly in Arch. I write these down as a reference.

systemctl

Few useful commands are:

Check status of running services:

systemctl status

Enable new service at boot

systemctl enable <service_name>

Start (or stop) new services on-the-fly

systemctl start <service_name>

installing from AUR

Sooner or later some package is missing and needs to be installed from AUR instead. There are many tools to automate this but the compilation and dependency checking is made easy enough so that only a few steps are needed. Therefore, I prefer to do this by hand as follows.

Create e.g. a ~/pkg directory and git clone the pkg repo

git clone <address>

then compile and check dependencies

makepkg -s

As an annoying safety feature, sometimes the PGP key is missing. If you want to live dangerously and proceed anyway you can add --skippgpcheck option to skip the check.

Then install the new package with

makepkg -i

that corresponds to pacman -U pkgname

AUR helpers

After you are familiar with installing AUR packages manually, it is recommended to install an AUR manager. I found yay to be nice and simple: https://github.com/Jguer/yay

Basic usage is handled with:

yay -S pkgname      #install package from AUR
yay <Search Term> 	#Present package-installation selection menu.
yay -Ps 	        #Print system statistics.
yay -Yc 	        #Clean unneeded dependencies.
yay -G <AUR pkg> 	#Download PKGBUILD from ABS or AUR.
yay -Y --gendb      #Generate development package database used for devel update.

Once in a while it is good to run a full system update with:

yay -Syu --devel --timeupdate 	#Perform system upgrade, but also check for development package updates and use PKGBUILD modification time (not version number) to determine update.

Configuring

After those preliminaries, here follows the actual list of configurations I've figured out so far.

time

If you have opened Windows before installing Linux it might have messed your internal system clock. This is the clock that stores time when you shutdown the computer and reload. Win10 apparently overwrites the time with timezone settings so there might be +-few hour mismatch to real time in Linux.

To update it reliably and easily install ntp then get the global time with

sudo ntpd -qg

and write it back to the system clock

sudo hwclock --systohc

you can then check that everything went ok by looking

timedatectl status

that should show correct timezone and correct localtime.

System clock is quite stable and robust so I don't see any point launching a daemon to keep it up to date. One can do this manually with the above commands instead once per year or so if you like your seconds to be correct.

wifi

For wifi you have two options: netctl or NetworkManager. Both are relatively easy to use BUT they do not work if they are both running simultaneously. Pick one.

I went with 'NetworkManager'. It has worked ok ever since launching.

TODO: write how to save wlan configurations and autoconnect.

Basic NetworkManager usage

show wifis

nmcli device wifi list

and connect

nmcli device wifi connect <SSID> password <password>

terminal

A good and flexible terminal is a must. Many recommend rxvt-unicode.

A reasonable terminal font is the hand-groomed hack (install with pkg ttf-hack).

To load these we can modify the .Xresources as

! fix HiDpi scaling 
Xft.dpi: 192

! TODO: define basic colors here; pick whatever you like. For my configuration, see below.

urxvt*scrollBar: False

URxvt.transparent: true
URxvt.shading: 20

urxvt*transparent: true
urxvt*shading: 20

URxvt.font:       xft:Hack-Regular:pixelsize=22
URxvt.boldFont:   xft:Hack-Bold:weight=bold:pixelsize=22,xft:Symbola
URxvt.italicFont: xft:Hack-RegularOblique:pixelsize=22:slant=italic
URxvt.letterSpace: 0

reasonable terminal default colors

Here is a reasonable terminal color list that you can add to .Xresources.

#define S_base03        #002b36
#define S_base02        #073642
#define S_base01        #586e75
#define S_base00        #657b83
#define S_base0         #839496
#define S_base1         #93a1a1
#define S_base2         #eee8d5
#define S_base3         #fdf6e3

*background:            S_base03
*foreground:            S_base0
*fadeColor:             S_base03
*cursorColor:           S_base1
*pointerColorBackground:S_base01
*pointerColorForeground:S_base1

#define S_yellow        #b58900
#define S_orange        #cb4b16
#define S_red           #dc322f
#define S_magenta       #d33682
#define S_violet        #6c71c4
#define S_blue          #268bd2
#define S_cyan          #2aa198
#define S_green         #859900

!! black dark/light
*color0:                S_base02
*color8:                S_base03

!! red dark/light
*color1:                S_red
*color9:                S_orange

!! green dark/light
*color2:                S_green
*color10:               S_base01

!! yellow dark/light
*color3:                S_yellow
*color11:               S_base00

!! blue dark/light
*color4:                S_blue
*color12:               S_base0

!! magenta dark/light
*color5:                S_magenta
*color13:               S_violet

!! cyan dark/light
*color6:                S_cyan
*color14:               S_base1

!! white dark/light
*color7:                S_base2
*color15:               S_base3

login prompt

Login greeter can be tweaked to include the username by adding the -o option to agetty. Additionally, it seems reasonable to put a 1s delay into it since otherwise the intel microcode will dump some garbage on the screen.

Create a file /etc/systemd/system/getty@tt1.service.d/override.conf with content:

[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/usr/bin/agetty -n --delay 1 -o USERNAME %I
TTYVTDisallocate=no

Replace USERNAME with your own.

audio

Audio needs the sof firmware driver. To set and modify the audio levels install also:

alsa-utils

In addition, we need to tell the pulse audio library to use the new sof drivers. Add this file etc/pulse/default.pa:

module-load module-alsa-sink hw:0,0 channels=4
module-load module-alsa-source hw:0,6 channels=4

Set Speaker to Mute to remove hollow/thin sound in alsamixer. Do this at startup by adding to your .xinitrc

amixer -c 0 set Speaker mute

Remove and blacklist PC speaker

I find it nice to remove the internal PC speaker from beeping. Do

sudo rmmod pcspkr

and enjoy the eerie silence.

Make it permanent by blacklisting the module from being loaded by udev with

echo "blacklist pcspkr" > /etc/modprobe.d/nobeep.conf

keyboard

thinkpad keyboard shortcuts

In order to get the thinkpad extra keyboard keys working the running kernel needs to be updated with the thinkpad_acpi module. Install that and enable the service.

Next we need a script that listens to keypresses, captures them and lets us perform stuff based on them.

Install acpid for that. Enabled it via systemctl enable acpi.service.

Try with live capturing:

journalctl -f

and record what button/combination is called what.

Button action can be configured by modifying an event handler script at /etc/acpi/handler.sh and by restarting acpi.service / booting the machine.

My script is at the end of this section.

display brightness controls

You can check the current brightness with:

cat /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness

and maximum possible brightness (to get a feeling of the scaling) with

cat /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/max_brightness

Different machines might have different bl_device so check that intel_backlight exists.

For the actual brightness control we need to add user to video group in oder to have permission to write to the needed configuration files.

Add a file /etc/udev/rules.d/backlight.rules with:

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="backlight", KERNEL=="intel_backlight", RUN+="/bin/chgrp video /sys/class/backlight/%k/brightness"
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="backlight", KERNEL=="intel_backlight", RUN+="/bin/chmod g+w /sys/class/backlight/%k/brightness"

Then

sudo usermod -aG <user>

After this you have permission to change bl_dev and Fn+F5/F6 should work.

Ref:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Backlight

clipboard and copy-pasting

Copypasting with neovim and urxvt is weird. It works if you add

set clipboard=unnamedplus

to vim config (~/.config/nvim/init.vim for neovim). Importantly, after this the X clipboard can be accessed with shift+mouse-middle-button.

TODO: opposite (copypasting from neovim back) does not seem to work. Fix?

Event handler script `handler.sh`

This is my /etc/acpi/handler.sh:

#!/bin/bash

# backlight devide and increment step size
bl_dev=/sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight
bl_step=1000

case "$1" in
    button/volumedown)
	    logger 'Volume down'
	    amixer set Master 5-
        ;;
    button/volumeup)
	    logger 'Volume up'
	    amixer set Master 5+
        ;;
    button/mute)
	    logger 'Volume mute toggle'
	    amixer set Master toggle
        ;;
    video/brightnessup)
	    logger 'Brightness up'
	    echo $(($(<$bl_dev/brightness) + $bl_step)) >$bl_dev/brightness
        ;;
    video/brightnessdown)
	    logger 'Brightness down'
	    echo $(($(<$bl_dev/brightness) - $bl_step)) >$bl_dev/brightness
        ;;
    *)
        logger "ACPI group/action undefined: $1 / $2"
        ;;
esac

typomatic keyboard tweaks

Disable capslock

add .xinitrc with:

setxkbmap -option caps:none

Decrease typomatic delay by again adding to .xinitrc:

xset r rate 225 33

TrackPoint configuration

Trackpoint is configurable via libinput by default.

Other options are evdev and mtrack.

Usage:

xinput --list
xinput --list-props ID

Insert slight acceleration to make it easier to go from one end of the screen to another:

xinput --set-prop 15 'libinput Accel Speed' 0.1

Alternatively, for detailed work, add negative acceleration

xinput --set-prop 15 'libinput Accel Speed' -0.3

Refs:

Control+Enter and Shift+Enter

urxvt (and many others) terminal is not capable of detecting Ctrl+Enter or Shift+Enter. Luckily, we can patch this by adding to .Xresources:

! add detection of ctrl/shift + enter
URxvt.keysym.S-Return: \033[13;2u
URxvt.keysym.C-Return: \033[13;5u

After this xrdb .Xresources and restart your terminal. Testing can be done by first inserting Ctrl+V followed by Return and then testing your keybinding:

Activate key translation mode Ctrl+V + Return.
Test new binding Ctrl+Return.
This should print \033[13;5u

openssh

Default ssh app from the public openssh package does not support kerberos tickets that need gssapi key exchange support. Instead, one needs to manually install openssh-gssapi from the AUR.

If you do not know what a kerberos ticket is, then you should skip this step and go with the default ssh client.

fingerprint reader

Fingerprint reader installation needs some effort but does work in the end. Packages we need:

fwupdmgr
usbutils
fprintd
imagemagic

NOTE: Future firmware updates might make this obsolete. Proceed with caution.

First, let's check the status of the firmware with:

fwupdmgr get-devices

Check that you have:

├─Prometheus:
│ │   Summary:             Fingerprint reader
│ │   Current version:     10.02.3110269
│ │   Vendor:              Synaptics (USB:0x06CB)
│ │ 
│ └─Prometheus IOTA Config:
│       Current version:   0022
│       Minimum Version:   0022
│       Vendor:            Synaptics (USB:0x06CB)

with at least version 10.02 for Prometheus and 0022 for Prometheys IOTA config drivers.

If not, we need to update it from the lvfs-testing repository (i.e. not stable updates). This step might change when the fix is finally accepted to upstream.

Enable lvfs testing with:

sudo fwupdmgr enable-remote lvfs-testing

then use fwupdmgr to refresh the driver list, download updates, and update:

fwupdmgr refresh
fwupdmgr get-updates
fwupdmgr update

Now we can proceed to the actual fprint installation with pacman, as usual.

After that you might want to remove the testing branch remote with

sudo fwupdmgr disable-remote lvfs-testing

because pushing unstable firmware BIOS drivers to your machine might not be the best idea.

Next we need to setup fingerprints and enable login. Run

fprintd-enroll

and give your right index finger (or whatever) as many times as the application wants (8 times for me)

After this the print should appear in /var/lib/fprint/USER/synaptics. You can check that it works with

fprintd-verify -f right-index USER
Using device /net/reactivated/Fprint/Device/0
Listing enrolled fingers:
 - #0: right-index-finger
Verify result: verify-match (done)

Finally, we can put that fingerprint reader to good use by enabling it as a sufficient local login authentication method. Modify /etc/pam.d/system-local-login as:

auth		sufficient	pam_fprintd.so

by inserting this to the top of the list.

Similarly, one could edit /etc/pam.d/sudo. However, not sure if this is wise.

By using the sufficient option the reader will ask for the index finger 3 times and if failed it will open the password box as normal.

Refs:

bluetooth

Bluetooth installation is another pain in the ass.

TODO: these notes are still incomplete. Bluetooth does work but only intermittently. Make it stable.

Packages needed:

bluez
bluez-utils
pulseaudio-bluetooth
blueman
bluez-hid2hci

Begin by checking that bluetooth module is loaded to kernel:

modinfo btusb

and see that you get output.

systemctl enable bluetooth.service

next, add user to lp group to get acces to bl devices group for acces to parallel port devices (printers and others)

display current groups

groups user
gpasswd -a user group

checking device status

Now we are ready to start tweaking.

tried installing this package for thinkpad:

bluez-hid2hci

and it seems to work.

TODO: confirm bluetooth functionality

There seems to be also a hardware-based on-off switch. Check its status with:

rfkill list

that shows status of wireless devices. Then press Fn+F10 (bluetooth symbol) and try again. Soft blocked should turn from yes to no or vice versa.

Same info is available from

cat /proc/acpi/ibm/bluetooth 
status:		enabled
commands:	enable, disable

and is controllable from

cat /sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi/bluetooth_enable

by inserting 0 or 1 to the file.

debugging bluetooth device and service

test bluetooth device with bluetoothctl that is part of the bluez package.

Then inside the cli app try these commands:

show
power on
scan on
pair MAC_ADDRESS
connect MAC_ADDRESS

NOTE: blueman automates all of this so not really needed in real life usage scenario.

Apparantly, a better way to debug this is by first stopping the service

systemctl stop bluetooth

and then loading it manually

/usr/lib/bluetoothd -n -d

and checking the output.

Another tool is the btmgmt with commands:

info
select hci0
power on

removing wifi & bluetooth interference settings

To /etc/modprobe.d/iwlwifi.conf add

options iwlwifi bt_coex_active=0

actual usage with `blueman`

Finally, you can easily pair and connect to devices by launching

blueman-applet

As an end verdict I have a relatively easy to use bluetooh pairing that sometimes works. Not sure what to take home from this.

Refs:

bluetooth appendix: delay bluetooth powering from restart

Some users said that this helps. I did not find any diffrence.

Create the file /etc/systemd/system/bluetooth-poweron.service as root and put the following code into it:

[Unit]
Description=Bluetooth Power Fix
After=bluetooth.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/bluetoothctl -- power on
Restart=always
RestartSec=5s

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

then run systemctl enable bluetooth-poweron

bluetooth appendix: pulse audio libraries

Some also said that these are needed. Again I did not find these important.

Modify /etc/pulse/default.pa

load-module bluetooth-xx
load-module bluetooth-yy

bluetooth appendix: auto switch on connect

Modify /etc/pulse/default.pa

load-module module-switch-on-connect

NOTE: blueman-applet does pulseaudio switching automatically. These modules seem to be NOT needed.

bluetooth appendix: apple airpods

TODO: Getting Apple AirPods to work seems the trickiest. Not working reliably atm.

Refs:

keyring

Keyring remembers your passwords for a while during the X session. Install it with

libsecret
gnome-keyring

for GUI add also seahorse.

To add git to keyring, execute

git config --global credential.helper /usr/lib/git-core/git-credential-libsecret

power saving

tlp package automates most of the nasty AC/BATTERY power saving tweaks. I found it super useful.

Install tlp and dependencies:

tpi
tp_smapi #not needed; for older models
acpi_call

Then start and enable the service

systemctl enable tlp.service

Check current status

tlp-stat

And finally, add battery charge depletion. Modify /etc/tlp.conf with these lines

START_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0=75
STOP_CHARGE_THRESH_BAT0=80

To bring the battery to full charge once (reverts back to previous levels after this) issue

sudo tlp fullcharge

I've found this useful especially if I know that I need to travel and dont have access to charger for a while. Otherwise its good to keep the maximum charge at ~80% to extend the battery lifetime.

Refs:

adding swapfile

Create directory for the swap file e.g. into /var/cache/swap

Initialize a 8GB file (ok'ish size for 16GB of RAM)

dd if if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1K count=8M
sudo chmod 600 swapfile

convert it to swap space

sudo mkswap swapfile

enable paging and swapping

sudo swapon swapfile

Verify that it works by looking into swapon -s, top, or free

To make it permanent add to /etc/fstab

/etc/cache/swap/swapfile none swap defaults 0 0

and test that the bindings work by disabling and enabling it

sudo swapoff swapfile
sudo swapon -va

nnn file browser and media thumbnails

install nnn. Then configure it.

TODO: write about configuration.

launcher script with n. See .bashrc.
nuke launching with right fallbacks

nnn appendix: xdg-open - default apps for different file types

To config it we need set xdg-mime types for different files.

To query file type and opener:

xdg-mime query filetype photo.jpeg
xdg-mime query default image/jpeg

and to set

xdg-mime default feh.desktop image/jpeg

Now lets set reasonable defaults:

 xdg-mime default zathura.desktop application/pdf

nnn appendix: preview

To make the preview plugin work we need to copy

https://github.com/jarun/nnn/blob/master/plugins/preview-tabbed and chmod +x preview-tabbed https://github.com/jarun/nnn/blob/master/plugins/nuke and chmod +x nuke

to ~/.config/nnn/plugins/

and install these packages

xdotool
tabbed # AUR
zathura

nuke dependencies:

bsdtar
unrar
mpv,
odt2txt
w3m / lynx / elinks
jq / python json.tool
sxiv / viu
mocplay
djvutxt
exiftool

AUR additions:

7z
glow

nnn appendix: pdf viewing with zathura

For pdfs zathura is a minimal browsing application. Its Arch installation lacks a desktop mime link (this is a bug) that we need to add manually by sudo creating /usr/share/application/zathura.desktop with the following content

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Zathura
Comment=A minimalistic PDF viewer
Exec=zathura %f
Terminal=false
Categories=Office;Viewer;
MimeType=application/pdf;

Refs:

https://github.com/escherdragon/zathura/blob/master/zathura.desktop

lock screen

NOTE: After using this for a while it seems super buggy. Not recommended.

yay -S xss-lock
yay -S bc
yay -S betterlockscreen

Pre-create image cache:

betterlockscreen -u wpaper.jpg

add /etc/pam.d/i3lock:

auth sufficient pam_fprintd.so
auth include system-auth

And then use i3 to launch xss-lock.

Alternatively, we could sign up a service. See the file /lib/system.d/betterlockscreen@.service and enable:

systemctl enable betterlockscreen@natj.service

screenshots

For taking screenshots install scrot.

Folder encryption

install ecryptfs with simple user-friendly cli scripts:

yay -S ecryptfs-simple

load encrypt kernel module temporarily

sudo modprobe ecryptfs

create:

ecryptfs-setup-private --nopwcheck --noautomount

The mount point ("upper directory") for the encrypted folder will be at ~/Private by default, however you can manually change this right after the setup command has finished running, by doing:

mv ~/Private /path/to/new/folder
echo /path/to/new/folder > ~/.ecryptfs/Private.mnt

Mount passphrase is used to derive the actual file encryption master key.
It will be encrypted using the login passphrase and stored in this encrypted form in ~/.ecryptfs/wrapped-passphrase.

Make sure this file does not get lost, otherwise you can never access your encrypted folder again! You may want to run ecryptfs-unwrap-passphrase to see the mount passphrase in unencrypted form, write it down on a piece of paper, and keep it in a safe.

Simple mounting:

ecryptfs-simple /path/to/foo /path/to/bar

Unmounting by mountpoint:

ecryptfs-simple -u /path/to/bar

Fish shell

You will be using terminal a lot. I recommend installing and configuring fish shell instead of bash.

Work in Progress / NOTES:

spell checking

hunspell hunspell-en_US

intel gpu

Notes on gpu and drivers. Currently works well enough out of the box.

TODO: intel_agp and i915 drivers?

Refs:

throttled

TODO: is it needed? Seems to work fine without.

disk usage

Refs:

thinkpad hw controls

tpacpi controls are in directory:

/sys/devices/platform/thinkpad_acpi

mac files (incl. sparsebundles)

https://github.com/torarnv/sparsebundlefs

OS helper

https://github.com/qdore/Mutate https://albertlauncher.github.io/help/

TODO / missing functionality list

TODO: proper folder viewer

TODO: open script to open every file type

TODO: OS helper: albert/mutate etc

TODO: bluetooth + airpods

Appendix

This is appendix of stuff that does not need to be repeated but might come in handy once in a while.

boot into live iso

When all goes wrong you can always boot and debug by using the live iso USB.

TODO: describe these in more detail:

boot live iso
mount partitions
chroot into your system

kernel compilation

Some general notes about kernel compilation.

initial ramdisk

"Initial ramdisk is in essence a very small environment (early userspace) which loads various kernel modules and sets up necessary things before handing over control to init." - wiki/mkinitcpio

First an initial ramdisk image is created with

mkinitcpio

This creates both the default (optimized) image and a fallback image (that skips autodetect hook of drivers and embeds everything into the image just in case).

There might be messages during compile time about missing firmware:

aic94xx
wd719x

see https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Mkinitcpio#Possibly_missing_firmware_for_module_XXXX

These appear harmless as they are both some HDD/RAID drivers.

Configuration is in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

add LTS kernel to UEFI

TODO: expand on this.

efibootmgr --disk /dev/sdX --part Y --create --label "Arch Linux LTS" --loader /vmlinuz-linux-lts --unicode 'root=PARTUUID=XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX rw initrd=\initramfs-linux-lts.img' --verbose

encrypting USB flash drives

This part is almost directly copied from: https://zuttobenkyou.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/how-to-encrypt-your-usb-flash-drives/

Find the correct device:

lsblk

Wipe the device with random data. I prefer to target the disk by its UUID because using the /dev/sdX convention is not very reliable (the letters can change between boots/hotmounts).

NOTE: You might be interested in http://frandom.sourceforge.net/ if your device is over 16 GiB or so, because using /dev/urandom can be very slow. If using Arch Linux, you can get it from the AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/frandom/.

dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/disk/by-uuid/XXX bs=4096

Create the partition on the device.

cfdisk /dev/disk/by-uuid/XXX

Encrypt the partition and make it LUKS-compatible. See the manpage for cryptsetup:

-c: cipher type to use -y: LUKS will ask you to input the passphrase; using -y will ask you twice and complain if the two do not match. -s: Key size in bits; the larger the merrier, but limited by the cipher/mode used.

cryptsetup -c aes-xts-plain -y -s 512 luksFormat /dev/disk/by-uuid/XXX

Open the partition with LUKS.

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/disk/by-uuid/XXX mycrypteddev

The partition is now available from /dev/mapper/mycrypteddev as a "regular" partition, since LUKS is now handling all block device encryption between the use and the device.

Set up a filesystem on the partition:

mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/mycrypteddev

Close the partition with LUKS:

cryptsetup luksClose /dev/mapper/mycrypteddev

manual usage

Encryption setup complete! Now every time you want to access the partition, you must first open it with LUKS and then mount it. Then when you're done, do the reverse: unmount and close it with LUKS.

To mount and open with LUKS:

cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/disk/by-uuid/XXX mycrypteddev
mount -t ext4 /dev/mapper/mycrypteddev /mnt/mount_point

To unmount and close with LUKS:

umount /mnt/mount_point
cryptsetup luksClose mycrypteddevr

automatic mounting

#!/bin/zsh
# LICENSE: PUBLIC DOMAIN
# mount/unmount encrypted flash drives
 
mp=$3
uuid=""
 
case $2 in
    "0")
        uuid="11e102cd-dea1-46a8-ae9b-b3f74b536e64" # my red USB drive
        ;;
    "1")
        uuid="cf169437-b937-4a39-86cb-7ca82bd9fe94" # my green one
        ;;
    "2")
        uuid="57a0b7d5-d2a6-47e0-a0e3-adf69501d0cd" # my blue one
        ;;
    *)
        ;;
esac
 
if [[ $uuid == "" ]]; then
    echo "No predefined device specified."
    exit 0
fi
 
case $1 in
    "m")
        echo "Authorizing encrypted partition /dev/mapper/$mp..."
        sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/disk/by-uuid/$uuid $mp
        echo -n "Mounting partition on /mnt/$mp..."
        sudo mount -t ext4 /dev/mapper/$mp /mnt/$mp && echo "done."
        ;;
    "u")
        echo -n "Unmounting /mnt/$mp..."
        sudo umount /mnt/$mp && echo "done."
        echo -n "Closing encrypted partition /dev/mapper/$mp..."
        sudo cryptsetup luksClose $mp && echo "done."
        ;;
    *)
        ;;
esac

automated script usage

To mount the green USB to /mnt/ef0 (ef0 is just an arbitrary folder name):

./cmount.sh m 1 ef0

Then to unmount:

./cmount.sh u 1 ef0

manage packages

Query user installed packages:

comm -23 <(pacman -Qqett | sort) <(pacman -Qqg base -g base-devel | sort | uniq)

OPTIONAL: tiling window manager Awesome

Tiling window managers are the best. I installed awesome to my Arch.

NOTE: I've switched to 'i3' and recommend you do the same. In the end its much more configurable and less buggy.

Process is relatively straightforward but to get transparency also working you need these packages:

xcompmgr
transset-df
awesome

In addition, the .xinitrc needs to be modified. Add these lines to the end of the file:

exec xcompmgr -c & #optional for real transparency
exec awesome

Addendum: transparency causes issues with screen sharing with softwares like Zoom etc. I recommend not using it.

awesome appendix: automatic window opening

Add these to the end of the .config/awesome/rc.lua to automatically load some apps at startup

-- background apps
awful.spawn.once("dropbox")
awful.spawn.once("TogglDesktop", {minimized = true} )

-- make tag 2 ready with 3 terminals
awful.spawn(terminal, { screen = 1, tag = "2", focus = false} )
awful.spawn(terminal, { screen = 1, tag = "2", focus = false} )
awful.spawn(terminal, { screen = 1, tag = "2", focus = false} )

-- autostart common apps
awful.spawn.once("slack",   { screen = 1, tag = screen[1].tags[9], maximized = true, focus = false} )
awful.spawn.once("firefox", { screen = 1, tag = screen[1].tags[1], maximized = true, } )

Change tags and screen as necessary.

OPTIONAL: KDE plasma

pacman -S xorg plasma plasma-wayland-session kde-applications

Once installed, enable the Display Manager and Network Manager services:

systemctl enable sddm.service
systemctl enable NetworkManager.service

List of all the need-to-have packages

ntp
NetworkManager/nmcli
rxvt-unicode
ttf-hack
alsa-utils
thinkpad_acpi
acpid
i3
fwupdmgr
usbutils
fprintd
imagemagic
libsecret
gnome-keyring
tlp
nnn
xdotool
tabbed
zathura
bsdtar
unrar
mpv
dt2txt
sxiv
exiftool
scrot

AUR

7z  
glow

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 23 Commits
README.md		README.md
makefile		makefile

natj/guide-to-configuring-arch-on-lenovo-carbon-x1-gen7

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Configuring Arch Linux on Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen7

Basic survival commands

systemctl

installing from AUR

AUR helpers

Configuring

time

wifi

Basic NetworkManager usage

terminal

reasonable terminal default colors

login prompt

audio

Remove and blacklist PC speaker

keyboard

thinkpad keyboard shortcuts

display brightness controls

clipboard and copy-pasting

Event handler script handler.sh

typomatic keyboard tweaks

TrackPoint configuration

Control+Enter and Shift+Enter

openssh

fingerprint reader

bluetooth

checking device status

debugging bluetooth device and service

removing wifi & bluetooth interference settings

actual usage with blueman

bluetooth appendix: delay bluetooth powering from restart

bluetooth appendix: pulse audio libraries

bluetooth appendix: auto switch on connect

bluetooth appendix: apple airpods

keyring

power saving

adding swapfile

nnn file browser and media thumbnails

nnn appendix: xdg-open - default apps for different file types

nnn appendix: preview

nnn appendix: pdf viewing with zathura

lock screen

screenshots

Folder encryption

Fish shell

Work in Progress / NOTES:

spell checking

intel gpu

throttled

disk usage

thinkpad hw controls

mac files (incl. sparsebundles)

OS helper

TODO / missing functionality list

Appendix

boot into live iso

kernel compilation

initial ramdisk

add LTS kernel to UEFI

encrypting USB flash drives

manual usage

automatic mounting

automated script usage

manage packages

OPTIONAL: tiling window manager Awesome

awesome appendix: automatic window opening

OPTIONAL: KDE plasma

List of all the need-to-have packages

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Event handler script `handler.sh`

actual usage with `blueman`

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