Lenovo ThinkPad Helix

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Hardware Information
Form Factor
Tablet/Ultrabook Convertible (detachable keyboard dock)
Display
11.6" 1920x1080 LCD with Capacitive and Pen Digitizers
CPU
3rd Generation (Ivy Bridge) Core i5-3427U or i7-3667U
RAM
4GiB (i5) or 8GiB (i7) DDR3L RAM (dependent upon CPU)
Storage
128/160/256GB mSATA SSD
WiFi
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205S mPCI WLAN
Bluetooth
Broadcom BCM20702 Bluetooth 4.0 (USB connected)
Camera
5MP Rear and 2MP Front (also USB)
For the second generation of Helix hardware (models 20CG and 20CH), see
Levovo ThinkPad Helix 2nd Gen
.
Installation
Note
As this model includes no physical recovery media, it is highly recommended to create a Windows re-installation flash drive just in case using the recovery media creation tool included with your preinstalled Windows system.
Due to the fact that there is no optical drive, you need to use a
USB flash installation medium
.
Digitizers
The Lenovo Helix comes with the following input devices (the ids may not be the same on your system):
$ xinput list
⎡ Virtual core pointer                    	id=2	[master pointer  (3)]
⎜   ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer              	id=4	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen stylus               	id=15	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Atmel Atmel maXTouch Digitizer          	id=16	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad              	id=18	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ TPPS/2 IBM TrackPoint                   	id=19	[slave  pointer  (2)]
⎜   ↳ Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen eraser               	id=21	[slave  pointer  (2)]
A Wacom USB device recognized by the
xf86-input-wacom
driver will create multiple X input devices from a single kernel device.  In the Lenovo Helix's case, three such X input devices are created when properly configured:
Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen stylus
Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen eraser
Atmel Atmel maXTouch Digitizer
The
Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen stylus
xinput device is recognized by the
xf86-input-wacom
driver out of the box.  However, additional
Udev
and
Xorg
configuration is required to recognize the
Atmel Atmel maXTouch Digitizer
touchscreen device as well as
Wacom ISDv4 EC Pen eraser
input if using a pen with an eraser function.
Xorg configuration
Next, you will need to tell
Xorg
to use the new inputs.  The
xf86-input-wacom
driver package has an up-to-date list of devices that the Helix has.  But, the package does not install the updated list by default.  You will need to link it for Xorg to see them:
# ln -s /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-wacom.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-wacom.conf
Once done with all the above, reboot and you verify
xinput list
looks the same as the above.
Touchscreen
If you find yourself frustrated by the capacitive digitizer while trying to use the pen, there are a few options as outlined below that can help.
thinkpad-helix-utils: Toggle Touch
The
thinkpad-helix-utils
AUR
package contains a script located at
/usr/bin/helix-toggle-touch
that will toggle the capacitive digitizer on and off with a simple command using Xorg's
xinput
function.  It also installs a
desktop
file called
Toggle Touch
that can be used to toggle xinput on and off with the pen.
Once activated, it disables the touchscreen xinput device until it is ran again to re-activate it.
xnohands
Another option that also uses Xorg's
xinput
is
xnohands
.  This utility disables the touch device in a system when a stylus is detected (either pen or eraser) and re-enables the touchscreen once then stylus is pulled away from the screen.  It does this by listening to the digitizer's "presence" event, which the Helix's Wacom ISDv4 EC input devices support.  You will need to download and extract it.  Follow the README for instructions as it outlines how to set it up.
NOTE: You must have followed the udev and xorg configuration instructions earlier to have both the Pen and Eraser detected, as well as the touchscreen (all three must be detected); or else, this tool will not work.
If you want it always running, install the desktop file in your autostart to have it run on startup:
$ cp xnohands.desktop ~/.config/autostart/
Please note that you can have both the thinkpad-helix-utils
Toggle Touch
and
xnohands
installed; but, do not use both at the same time.
xnohands
will "re-activate" the touchscreen as soon as you pull the pen away from the screen, defeating the purpose of
Toggle Touch
to keep touch disabled at all times.
Sensors
Install
the package
iio-sensor-proxy
to expose the dbus events. For example,
gnome
will automatically utilize the dbus events exposed by the
iio-sensor-proxy
package to:
Adjust the display brightness when moving from dark to bright lighting
Automatically rotate the display based on orientation.
See the upstream source for more information about
iio-sensor-proxy
and how to configure/test its functionality.
Screen rotation
If you have both digitizers configured through the
xf86-input-wacom
driver and the
iio-sensor-proxy
package, they will automatically rotate with the display.
Alternatively, you can use a simple command like
xrandr --output eDP1 --rotate left
to rotate the screen with ease.
If you want to use the bezel buttons (or some other hotkey) to cycle through orientations (or toggle between two specific ones),
helix-rotate
, also from from
thinkpad-helix-utils
AUR
, provides an easy-to-bind command that may serve your needs well.
There is also
Magick Rotation
, which is supposed to automatically rotate the screen based on input events, but it only seems to respond to docking/undocking the tablet.
Firmware
Helpfully, Lenovo now provides
bootable ISO images
for the purpose of installing BIOS updates. While it is not stated on their site, these bootable images also include updated firmware for the keyboard dock MPU. It is uncertain as to whether the USB hub firmware is also updated via this utility.
Note
While the update utility states that all expansion units should be disconnected, it is only referring to external (USB and DisplayPort) devices. Ensure that the tablet is in the dock and connected only to AC power and the utility boot media before starting the process.
If you do not have access to a USB optical drive and writable media, the information on
ThinkWiki
is extremely helpful.