Lenovo ThinkPad T550

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Installation

Use the Installation guide.

Configuration

Backlight

The following kernel options are needed for ACPI/Backlight:

acpi_osi=Linux acpi_backlight=vendor video.use_native_backlight=1

Fn Keys

Function/Fn keys do not work without the FnLock on. To enable the FnLock, press Fn+Esc. The green light on the Fn key should turn on. Now you can use the Fn key like normal (i.e., with FnLock on Fn+F1 would equate to a XF86AudioMute to be handled by X/WM/whathaveyou).

Suspend

Add the following kernel parameter in order to combat freeze/panic after suspend-to-ram:

i915.enable_rc6=0

Video Drivers

Follow Intel graphics for installing the GPU driver. The T550 suffers from Intel graphics#Loss of horizontal sync when switching TTYs, but changing the Graphics Acceleration to UXA fixes it.

Issues

DisplayPort Extenders

The T550 is only able to drive three displays at once. If you are using a one-to-three DisplayPort adapter, you will need to disable the laptop display (xrandr --output eDP1 --off) in order to use three external displays. Expect a heavy delay (1-2 seconds) while adjusting displays via DisplayPort with xrandr.

USB

Enabling "Always-On USB" in the BIOS seems to make the forward-most USB port on the right side of the laptop (the 'Charging Port') unusable in Linux - disabling this feature in BIOS re-enables the port.