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.

Configuration

In order for the wireless chipset to work, it needs to be configured as a module (called iwlwifi). Otherwise it can not load the required firmware (package sys-kernel/linux-firmware) correctly.

Device Drivers  --->
 [*] Network device support  --->
   [*] Ethernet driver support  --->
     [*] Intel devices
       <*> Intel(R) PRO/1000 PCI-Express Gigabit Ethernet support
   [*] Wireless LAN  --->
     <M> Intel Wireless WiFi Next Gen AGN - Wireless-N/Advanced-N/Ultimate-N (iwlwifi)
     <*> Intel Wireless WiFi MVM Firmware support

Resources

The Thinkpad T440p has similar hardware, therefore, it was to look at its configuration: Gentoo Wiki on the T440p