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 "" # HalfLeftScreen 00100%50% # HalfRightScreen -00100%50% 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