x200
Things about the ThinkPad x200.
Touching the BIOS chip
Before doing anything on the BIOS chip (updating, flashing, erasing, backuping), the system needs to be booted in relaxed mode.
For that, when on the GRUB option to boot, do the e
key and add iomem=relaxed
at the end of the line beginning with linux
.
After that, you can do CTRL+x
to boot normally.
Backuping the BIOS ROM
To backup the BIOS ROM, flashrom
can be used:
flasrom -p internal -r mybackup.rom -c MX25L6405D
You can now securely backup the mybackup.rom
or re-flash it if needed.
Updating
Updating the CoreBoot version is very simple.
First, go on the official mirror for images and download the tar file located in the /roms/
directory (name of the file should have x200_8mb
in it).
You will then see plenty of ROMs, usually, grub_x200_8mb_libgfxinit_corebootfb_usqwerty.rom
is the right one.
To update the grub.conf
in it, cbfstool
can be used:
cbfstool grub_x200_8mb_libgfxinit_corebootfb_usqwerty.rom print
cbfstool grub_x200_8mb_libgfxinit_corebootfb_usqwerty.rom extract -n grub.cfg -f grub.cfg
cbfstool grub_x200_8mb_libgfxinit_corebootfb_usqwerty.rom remove -n grub.cfg
cbfstool grub_x200_8mb_libgfxinit_corebootfb_usqwerty.rom add -n grub.cfg -f grub.cfg -t raw
/!\ It is recommended to first test your configs in
grubtest.cfg
before anything else.
You can access thegrubtest.cfg
in the main GRUB screen.
After updating the GRUB config, you can just flash the ROM:
flashrom -p internal -w grub_x200_8mb_libgfxinit_corebootfb_usqwerty.rom -c MX25L6405D
Congrats, your install is now up-to-date.
Upgrades
Current upgrades of my particular unit:
- Latest version of the open-source LibreBoot BIOS replacement
- 8GB of RAM installed
- Default hard drive replaced by a 1TB Western Digital Green 2.5" SSD
Changing the splash image
For a x200, the image must be: 1280x800 (16:10).
To change it, do the same as when changing the grub config:
cbfstool grub_x200_8mb_libgfxinit_corebootfb_usqwerty.rom print
cbfstool grub_x200_8mb_libgfxinit_corebootfb_usqwerty.rom extract -n background.png -f background.png
Now, use gimp
or any other editor to change the contents of the background image.
After editing the image, you can put the new one into the ROM:
cbfstool grub_x200_8mb_libgfxinit_corebootfb_usqwerty.rom remove -n background.png
cbfstool grub_x200_8mb_libgfxinit_corebootfb_usqwerty.rom add -n background.png -f background.png -t raw
And then flash the image:
flashrom -p internal -w grub_x200_8mb_libgfxinit_corebootfb_usqwerty.rom -c MX25L6405D
/!\ Note: check that the ROM file is indeed 8MB, no more, no less.
And done!
What to do after installing an OS
Useful packages after installing an OS (ArchLinux in our case):
intel-gpu-tools
- can be used to control the backlight more finelytlp
- power managementpowerstat-git
- power management