Installing Gentoo on an X240

These notes refer to the installation of Gentoo on an X240 system. The notes are NOT step-by-step instructions, but they are supposed to provide the necessary information to simplify the installation (i.e. configuration files, etc).

/etc/portage/make.conf

The "core-avx" CFLAGS option optimises for the new Haswell instruction set:

CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=core-avx2 -O2 -pipe"
CXXFLAGS="${CFLAGS}"

source: Safe CFLAGS

Hardware information

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT DRAM Controller (rev 0b)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0b)
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT HD Audio Controller (rev 0b)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP USB xHCI HC (rev 04)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP HECI #0 (rev 04)
00:16.3 Serial controller: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP HECI KT (rev 04)
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection I218-LM (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP HD Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP PCI Express Root Port 6 (rev e4)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev e4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP USB EHCI #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode] (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Lynx Point-LP SMBus Controller (rev 04)
02:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS5227 PCI Express Card Reader (rev 01)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 (rev 83)

This laptop features the Intel Lynx PCH chipset.

lsusb

Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 04f2:b39a Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd 
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 8087:07dc Intel Corp. 
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 138a:0017 Validity Sensors, Inc. 
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 048d:1170 Integrated Technology Express, Inc. 
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:8000 Intel Corp. 
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Some of the USB devices are the fingerprint reader and the camera, they were not yet identified.