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| The main purpose of this software is to patch the EC on xx30 series thinkpads | |
| to make the classic 7-row keyboards work. There are also patches included (but | |
| disabled by default) to disable the authentic battery validation check. | |
| With the patches included here, you can install the classic keyboard | |
| hardware on many xx30 series laptops and make almost every key work properly. | |
| The only keys that are not working are Fn+F3 (Battery) and Fn+F12 (Hibernate) | |
| Unfortunately, it turns out that not all xx30 series thinkpads have the same | |
| BIOS and EC arrangement - some do not have a "FL2" file in the BIOS update | |
| image and thus the location of the EC to patch is missing. This is known to | |
| be the case with at least the L530. | |
| * A full writeup of the hardware modifications needed can be found at: | |
| http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Install_Classic_Keyboard_on_xx30_Series_ThinkPads | |
| * More information for hacking on this can be found in the docs/HACKING.txt | |
| file. | |
| * A video presenting how these thinkpad laptops were hacked is online: | |
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzmm87oVQ6c | |
| Step-by-step instructions: | |
| -------------------------- | |
| This software expects to be run under Linux. For best results, ensure you | |
| have updated your BIOS to a recent version before starting. If there is too | |
| large a difference between the BIOS and EC versions then the flash process | |
| will not complete. | |
| 1. Ensure you have installed the prerequisite packages | |
| On debian, this can be done with: | |
| apt-get install build-essential git mtools libssl-dev | |
| 2. Clone a copy of this repo on to your computer: | |
| git clone https://github.com/hamishcoleman/thinkpad-ec | |
| 3. Change to the directory created by the clone: | |
| cd thinkpad-ec | |
| 4. Show the list of laptops and USB image file names: | |
| make list_laptops | |
| 5. Choose your laptop model name from the list shown. | |
| E.G. "patched.x230.img" for a x230 laptop. | |
| 6. Using the name chosen in the previous step, make the fully | |
| patched image for this laptop (this will download the original | |
| file from Lenovo and patch it): | |
| make patched.x230.img | |
| 7. Insert your USB stick and determine what device name it has. | |
| (Note: chose a USB stick with nothing important on it, it will | |
| be erased in the next step) This command should help you find the | |
| right device: | |
| lsblk -d -o NAME,SIZE,LABEL | |
| 8. Write the bootable patched image onto the USB stick device (replace | |
| the "sdx" in this command with the correct name for your usb stick) | |
| WARNING: if you do not have the right device name, you might overwrite | |
| your hard drive! | |
| sudo dd if=patched.x230.img of=/dev/sdx | |
| Your USB stick is now ready to boot and install the patched firmware. | |
| Notes: | |
| ------ | |
| * You can also create a bootable CDROM image for burning to a disk | |
| by asking for a ".iso" file instead of the ".img" in step 6 above. | |
| Then you can use your normal CDROM burning tools to put this image on | |
| a blank cd and boot it up, skipping steps 7 and 8. | |
| * To include the battery validation patch or to make a build that | |
| reverts any EC changes, read the docs/CONFIG.txt and follow | |
| the configuration instructions in it before running step 6. | |
| Booting the stick and flashing the firmware: | |
| -------------------------------------------- | |
| While flashing the firmware is as simple as booting the USB stick | |
| created above, there are a couple of steps that can help the process. | |
| This is more a list of issues that the community has discovered as the | |
| patch was applied in different circumstances than a hard and fast set | |
| of requirements. | |
| * The firmware flash process generally requires you to have a charged | |
| battery plugged in to the laptop before it will complete. | |
| * Ensure your BIOS has been configured to boot from "Legacy" and not | |
| "UEFI" before trying to boot. | |
| * If you do normally use UEFI boot, there has been at least one case where | |
| the EC does not get flashed until the BIOS is switched back into UEFI | |
| mode - after which the EC was automatically flashed on the next reboot. | |
| * When you boot the stick, you will be shown information about the patch, | |
| including which laptop type it was built for. It pauses at this point | |
| for you to confirm that you wish to proceed. It will then automatically | |
| flash the patched firmware. |