Finally!! My t440s has arrived :)

[Feathers McGraw]

My T520 is of the older design, with buttons two buttons below the trackpad and three above it; my X1 has a larger trackpad without the lower buttons but still has the upper three. My daughter's IdeaPad 510p has the same configuration as you. I must say I don't like the new layout at all. Discrete buttons above the trackpad are, for me, very thumb-friendly, reachable as they are from the keyboard. I operate all three buttons with my left thumb while sliding a finger or two from my right hand on the trackpad. When I need to work on my daughter's computer, I find it a real struggle to adapt to the "seamless" buttons. The new design is unwieldy and suboptimal, but probably cheaper.

I have an external USB thinkpad keyboard with the old style trackpoint buttons and no touchpad, I really like the old style thumb buttons. A raised button with a ridge on it is easier to hit/feel with your thumb.

This is the one:
http://www.amazon.com/ThinkPad-USB-K.../dp/B002ONCC6G

I think the best combination is thumb buttons at the top and a large track pad below, which sounds like what you have. I've seen some thinkpads that are much older with kind of oval thumb buttons at the top, and don't like those so much. I think if I end up using the trackpoint lots on this laptop it might get frustrating, though no doubt I'll get used to it.

[oshunluvr]

I can't work out where to add that kernel parameter, do I create /boot/grub/menu.lst?

AFAIK, menu.lst hasn't been used since grub2 came out a couple years ago. It's functions were replaced by /boot/grub/grub.cfg but you don't edit that file directly. Kernel parameters would go in /etc/default/grub if you want them to be permanent. You then run sudo update-grub to update your grub install and add the parameter to your boot menu.

You can temporarily enter a kernel parameter in the grub menu using the edit function.

[Feathers McGraw]

Thanks mate. I'll try that now ☺

[Feathers McGraw]

Hmm, I added that to the end of /etc/default/grub and ran "sudo update-grub" and got this:

/usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig: 36: /etc/default/grub: thinkpad_acpi.brightness_enable=1: not found

Do I need to add something before the parameter?

[Snowhog]

This is what I had to use for quite some time to get my screen brightness keys to work.

Add noapic GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX= in /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="noapic"

Rerun sudo update-grub after the change. Reboot and see if your keys work.

[Feathers McGraw]

Just to confuse things, I've just installed rEFInd and removed grub...

[oshunluvr]

great...

[Feathers McGraw]

Lol, sorry :/

I'm currently reading up on the rEFInd documentation, I don't think it will be difficult to use those options, I just need to work out where to put them. Will report back when I've worked it out.

[oshunluvr]

Steve lauds rEFIND to anyone who will listen, so I'm sure it's a good choice. Still, it's not going to solve your brightness control issue - or at least not likely.

[Feathers McGraw]

Yeah I know what you mean, I've been wanting to try it for a while though, and there's little point getting things working with Grub and then removing it!

I think rEFInd is a better option than grub for installing on non-techie peoples' computers for them to dual boot, it doesn't look as scary as grub's text list of options. Certainly worth learning about.

[Feathers McGraw]

It turns out adding options in rEFInd is really easy. Just edit the file /boot/refind_linux.conf:

"Boot with custom options"        "ro root=UUID=38e12b21-8cac-4dbd-9a60-b0e21718ddd7  quiet splash thinkpad_acpi.brightness_enable=1"
"Boot with standard options"        "ro root=UUID=38e12b21-8cac-4dbd-9a60-b0e21718ddd7  quiet splash "
"Boot to single-user mode"          "ro root=UUID=38e12b21-8cac-4dbd-9a60-b0e21718ddd7  quiet splash single"
"Boot with minimal options"         "ro root=UUID=38e12b21-8cac-4dbd-9a60-b0e21718ddd7"

The top line is one I added myself... you get the idea.

I'm going to try Snowhog's suggestion of the noapic option now.

Slightly OT:
In rEFInd, you can choose options by pressing insert or + on the kernel you want, which brings up a submenu. That "boot to single user mode" is handy, it boots to a root commandline.

http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/configfile.html#stanzas

The rEFInd documentation is great, it's really clear and concise.

Feathers

[Feathers McGraw]

Curious... with the noapic option the laptop takes much longer to connect to the network, and even asks for a wifi key even though the password manager knows it. Owncloud sync client also asks for a password it knows. Perhaps something was busy and took longer to start up?

I've just noticed that if I press and hold the brightness keys they do work, but it takes about 2s to go down each brighness step and there is no on-screen feedback. I didn't notice before because I was only pressing the keys once. Could it be firmware controlled like the keyboard backlight?

The behaviour is the same regardless of the kernel parameters used.

[Snowhog]

Remove the option if it introduces other undesired issues. As said, it was what I 'had to use' for awhile to get my screen brightness keys to work.

[Feathers McGraw]

I have done. Thank you for the suggestion, it was certainly worth a try!