Installing Slackware/Linux on Yoga (IdeaPad) 11s

Disclaimer: A think a better laptop for the linux is the ThinkPad X250. But a colleague had for sale the yoga 11s and I went for it after I tested that it was bootable with a live-usb with Xubuntu.

First problem: Access the BIOS

My first problem was the BIOS. I was unable to access the boot menu. Normally you press Fn+F12 but the option was not available. The volume down button was destroyed (another method to access the BIOS). But pressing the "Novo" button, OneKey Recovery program showed up. I had two options (I think I selected repair). After the restart I was able to access the boot menu and BIOS. In reality there is no BIOS, but an EFI firmware that can simulate BIOS.

After entering the BIOS (excuse: EFI firmware) I 1) disabled the Fn behaviour to have classic F1-F12 keys, 2) Enabled the legacy (BIOS / Non-EFI) boot just in case.

Second Problem: too many partitions

I don't know if that was normal, but the internal disk had to many partitions.

I deleted some useless. After rebooted to windows one OneKey recovery was unable to start. Oops: be careful with what you erase. Backup first! (I had backup but I didn't care about windows). I used ntfsclone and I copied the EFI partitions that I erased. This is my partitions table with windows working with EFI boot and Linux with Legacy Boot (more on that later)

fdisk -l /dev/sda
Disk /dev/sda: 238.47 GiB, 256060514304 bytes, 500118192 sectors
Disk model: SAMSUNG MZMTD256
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt

Device         Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sda1       2048   2050047   2048000  1000M Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda2    2050048   2582527    532480   260M EFI System
/dev/sda3    2582528   4630527   2048000  1000M Lenovo boot partition
/dev/sda4    4630528   4892671    262144   128M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda5    4892672 273303551 268410880   128G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda6  273303552 273319935     16384     8M BIOS boot
/dev/sda7  273827840 500117503 226289664 107.9G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda8  273319936 273827839    507904   248M Linux filesystem

Partition table entries are not in disk order. 
	

Third problem: Garbled image graphics with EFI boot

With EFI boot and Slackware-15.0 I was unable to get console graphics. I didn't test Xubuntu with EFI.

The system works. When I press keys the screen responds. In theory if you can login remotely you can make the installation.

Fourth problem: can't boot linux (Bootloader) even with Legacy Boot

I managed to boot Slackware-15.0 via legacy boot via usb and install it. But I was unable to boot Linux with lilo. So, I used grub. But grub wanted a BIOS boot partition. I made one with 8Mbytes and it worked (!).

Fifth problem: If you boot to windows you are loosing again the boot menu

I suppose Windows are not shutdown the machine completely. So the boot menu on BIOS (excuse me: Firmware EFI menu) disappears. The solution was to execute on windows terminal the shutdown.exe /s /t 1 command. After that the boot menu (F12) and the EFI menu (F2) is active again temporary.

Sixth problem: USB3 needs fiddle to work

You need to add irqpoll to kernel parameters otherwise USB3 is not working.

Everything works except...

Everything works except the light sensor to auto adjust the brightness of the screen. I prefer manual brightness of the screen to save battery.

HDMI, bluetooth not tested.

Extra config's

You may want to install florence for a touch screen keyboard.

florence is unable to change layouts. If you use xfce, install xfce4-xkb-plugin.

I use xfce. To the power manager setting I set the 'brightness set count:' to 20.

In xfce dual finger scroll works on trackpad, but not on touchscreen. But it works on KDE. You may prefer KDE for touchscreen operation.

Screen does not autorotate. I manually rotate the screen with those files. As root go to / and untar them. Then you can add the rotation commands to your desktop with ln -s /usr/share/applications/rotate*.desktop ~/Desktop/

Remarks about the laptop

I like the keyboard, the IPS screen, the touchscreen. I miss the ThinkLight, the TrackPoint, the ethernet, the middle click, the 4:3 aspect ratio (the reason I stayed for so many years to X61), the docking ability, the SSD hard disk, the fast access to the internals and to the battery. You can have all that with the ThinkPad X250. The fan is quiet or not operating. The sound is way better than X61 even with the X docked (!). In the end of the day I prefer the Yoga 11s from the X61 because it's almost quiet.

The machine is fast even with Windows-10.

Playing radio streaming with mplayer and screen via WiFi it consumes 5.5Watt. Screen consumes 1.5Watt. mplayer consumes a trivial amount (not measurable). For comparison Core2Duo (X61) consumes 12Watt (double the power) with mplayer + screen and 10 Watts with screen off. mplayer on X61 needs 2Watts (!). Core2Duo without screen and mplayer (full idle) needs 5.5Watts to 7Watts. So even with screen off, core2duo needs allmost the twice power. I also bought a ThinkPad X250. In idle with 5300U CPU has even better wattage at 3Watts.

Yoga 11s is also very ecological on standby. 18Wh before standby 17Wh after some hours (I think 6). X61: 24Wh vs 20Wh after the same amount of time. Four time more consumption the X61 than yoga 11s on standby.

Compiling is needing 17Watts. Maximum CPU temp I saw is 60c vs 90c on X61.

Touchscreen wake ups the screen. Cool!

Bugs

After 95 days, the screen was slow. I tried to shutdown X, but it dind't not helped but after hibernation from console was fine.

Configs

My Grub entry

	menuentry 'Slackware-15.0 GNU/Linux/CLV' --class slackware_15_0 --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-4905e444-344f-44f8-b28d-fac4f602a29d' {
	load_video
	insmod gzio
	insmod part_gpt
	insmod ext2
	set root='hd0,gpt8'
	if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt8 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt8 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt8  9508d0f2-9ad5-483c-bf8f-827f02b3d341
	else
	  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9508d0f2-9ad5-483c-bf8f-827f02b3d341
	fi
	echo	'Loading clv custom kernel'
	#linux	/bzImage-clv root=UUID=4905e444-344f-44f8-b28d-fac4f602a29d ro  
	linux	/bzImage-clv root=/dev/sda7 ro resume=/dev/sda9
}

To use properly the scroll with touchscreen in firefox, add to your /etc/profile export MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1.

My kernel config.

ChangeLog

First published: April of 2022

USB3 needs tweak to work. May of 2022

Bug: video card hangs? Sep 2022

Dec 2024: ThinkPad X250

Made in Linux :)

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