Lenovo IdeaPad 7 14are05

Hardware
PCI/USB ID
Working?
Touchpad
Yes
Keyboard
Yes
GPU
Yes
Webcam
13d3:5419
Yes
Bluetooth
8087:0029
Yes
SD-card reader
Yes
Audio
Yes
Wi-Fi
8086:9df0
Yes
Fingerprint reader
Untested
TPM
Untested
Specifications
This device is marketed both as
Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 7
as well as
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7
depending on the region. Hence, the below instructions should in principle apply to both these models and minor variants.
Installation
Enter the UEFI Firmware setup by pressing
(Fn+) F2
during boot and disable
Secure Boot
which should deactivate
boot loader
and kernel verification for Windows 10 against Lenovo and Microsoft keys. Proceed to ensure that the machine allows for booting from a
USB key
. Boot with the latest
Arch Linux ISO image
and follow the
Installation guide
.
Accessibility
The appearance of the UEFI Firmware interface is reminiscent of regular BIOS'es and solely keyboard-driven.
The device has a convenient feature which is enabled by default in the UEFI Firmware, where pressing of a key when the device is off will display the state of charge (SoC) of the battery.
Firmware
Firmware updates are supported  via
fwupd
:
# fwupdate -s
Firmware updates are supported on this machine.
Firmware updates should become / be made available for the following devices:
Integrated Camera
Samsung NVMe SSD
System Firmware
Touchpad
UEFI dbx
Secure Boot
Warning
The following was tested successfully on UEFI Firmware version DMCN32WW.
Optionally verify the UEFI Firmware version via:
# dmidecode -s bios-version
In order to enable
Secure Boot
with your own custom keys, follow the steps as outlined on the
Secure Boot
page, up to the point of installing your own Platform Key (PK).
An attempt to install a custom Platform Key will fail using the mentioned methods, including using
efi-updatevar -f PK.auth
as well as
sbkeysync --verbose --PK
with error messages such as 'operation not permitted'.
These errors are due to the fact that the PK file in the firmware has the
'immutable' bit
set. Source for this idea was a comment in this
thread
from the author of
efitools
. To verify the state of the 'immutable' bit, do:
$ lsattr /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PK-(Lenovo key UID)
The output should be;
----i--------------
where the single 'i' indicates that the immutable bit is indeed set.
Proceed to unset the 'immutable' bit by entering:
# chattr -i /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PK-(Lenovo key UID)
Next, install your custom Platform Key (PK) as per one of the methods mentioned in the
Secure Boot
page instructions (
sbkeysync
, part of
sbsigntools
should work fine). It should install without error.
Check the correct installation of the new PK:
$ efi-readvar
It should list all custom keys/certificates (PK, KEK, DB, optionally dbx) as enrolled in the machine's UEFI Firmware.
Set the immutable bit for the new PK:
# chattr +i /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/PK-(UID of your new PK)
The instructions from the
Secure Boot
page apply again  from this point.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth works out of the box by simply following the instructions on the
Bluetooth
page.
Power management
See
Power management/Suspend and hibernate
for the details on the various supported sleep states.
There are descriptions of ways of re-enabling the S3 power state on similar devices (see
Lenovo IdeaPad 5 14are05#Suspend
and
here
for example). However this has not been tested as of yet on this machine by the author.
Energy Saving
The tips on the
Power management
page can be followed in order to optimize the power savings for the machine, such as creating configuration files in
/etc/modprobe.d/
for WiFi and audio power saving. This can be tested, verified and optimized in conjunction with
powertop
for example. When idling, the machine should consume as little as around 3W.
Warning
With reference to the inability by default to advertise an S3 state, please take heed with 'Suspend' tips on the
Power management
page.
Battery Conservation Mode
A simplified summary of lithium-ion battery chemistry limitations is that lithium-ion cells can get damaged when fully drained, but equally dislike being kept at or near 100% SoC (State of Charge), which stresses the cells causing them to degrade faster than normal/expected. In case lithium-ion batteries are to be stored or otherwise remain unused for a prolonged period of time, a SoC of around 50% to 60% is advisable (it is for example no accident that nearly all new devices such as tablets, cellphones etc. are pre-charged to around 50% SoC when one first unpacks them).
Equally, lithium-ion batteries should preferably be charged at 0,5C, meaning that the input current (Amps) should not exceed half of the cell's rated capacity (e.g. 2100mAh rated AA cell should preferably be placed in a charger that charges at max 1050 mAmps). Charging at higher rates can be done safely (even much higher rates can be achieved under controlled conditions, such as with cooling to prevent a 'thermal runaway' reaction) but will put a strain on the cells causing for faster degradation.
Several Lenovo laptops including this machine have hardware in place that manages both of the above, called battery
Conservation Mode
. Under GNU/Linux, this mode can be set persistently from the command-line. When set, the machine will either discharge to 60% or charge up to 60%, depending on the current SoC being either higher or lower.
Thus, in this mode, one can use the device as a desktop machine and safely leave the charger connected for extended periods of time.
Note
This setting is persistent, by which is meant that when plugged into the mains, the charging circuitry will keep the device at precisely 60% regardless of whether it is on or off. Additionally, 'rapid charging' should be disabled in this mode automatically, further preventing premature battery degradation. Note that this last part could not be verified: according to Lenovo's tech specs, rapid charging requires that the model is shipped with a 95W charging adapter. Tested model was shipped with a 65W charging adapter.
In order to set this mode, first verify that the 'ideapad_laptop'
kernel module
has been loaded:
# lsmod | grep ideapad_laptop
If not, you can attempt to load it manually:
# modprobe ideapad_laptop
To turn on battery Conservation Mode for the machine, perform the following action:
# echo 1 > /sys/bus/platform/drivers/ideapad_acpi/VPC2004\:00/conservation_mode
Check/verify the current value:
$ cat /sys/bus/platform/drivers/ideapad_acpi/VPC2004\:00/conservation_mode
It should now list "1"
The laptop should now charge/discharge until it reaches 60%.
At 60% the reported battery state should, instead of "charging" or "discharging", be reported as "unknown"
$ acpi -i
Battery 0: Unknown, 59%
Tip
You can turn off Conservation Mode again at any time by echoing a value of "0" instead of "1" in the echo-step above in order to revert to the original mode.
There are two Bash-scripts in the AUR with which battery Conservation Mode can be conveniently set:
ideapad-cm
AUR
,
ipman
AUR
.
HDMI
Video
The HDMI output will work out of the box. Read the
Multihead
and
xrandr
pages in order to set up a second monitor and for example switch between the internal eDP screen and an external HDMI monitor.
Audio
Additionally,
pulseaudio
can be made to output sound to the speakers of the external display, if present. In order to do this, set the external monitor as default output using e.g.
pulsemixer
or
pamixer
or check the
PulseAudio
page for further reference. When the external monitor goes into standby or is disconnected, audio will automatically switch back to the machine's speakers.
Function keys
Key
Visible?
1
Marked?
2
Effect
Fn
Yes
Yes
XF86WakeUp
Fn+Esc
No
Yes
Enables Fn lock
Fn+F1
Yes
Yes
XF86AudioMute
Fn+F2
Yes
Yes
XF86AudioLowerVolume
Fn+F3
Yes
Yes
XF86AudioRaiseVolume
Fn+F4
Yes
Yes
XF86AudioMicMute
Fn+F5
Yes
Yes
XF86MonBrightnessDown
Fn+F6
Yes
Yes
XF86MonBrightnessUp
Fn+F7
Yes
Yes
Fn+F8
Yes
Yes
XF86RFKill
Fn+F9
No
Yes
Fn+F10
No
Yes
Lock X screen
Fn+F11
No
Yes
Fn+F12
Yes
Yes
XF86Calculator
Fn+Space
No
Yes
Enables/disables keyboard backlight
Fn+Up
Yes
Yes
Page Up
Fn+Down
Yes
Yes
Page Down
The key is visible via
xev
(see package
xorg-xev
) and similar tools.
The physical key has a symbol on it, which describes its function.
Tips and tricks
Screen brightness control
Brightness of the built-in (eDP) screen can be set by echoing any value between 0 and 255 to /sys/class/backlight/amdgpu_bl0/brighness, e.g.
# echo 70 > /sys/class/backlight/amdgpu_bl0/brightness
See also
Official Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 / IdeaPad Slim 7 User Guides:
https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/ar/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/ideapad-s-series-netbooks/slim-7-14are05/documentation/doc_userguide