wonbinbk / thinkpad-ec Goto Github PK

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)

* 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.

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. Select the correct IMG name for your laptop.  E.G. "patched.x230.img" for
   the x230 laptop.

6. Make the fully patched iimage 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.
   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

   WARNING: if you do not have the right device name, you might overwrite
   your hard drive!

   sudo dd if=patched.x230.img of=/dev/sdb

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 7 above.
  Then you can use your normal CDROM burning tools to put this image on
  a blank cd and boot it up, skipping steps 8 and 9.

* 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.


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.