ArchiLinux on Thinkpad P16 Gen2

Introduction
Before installation
Fingerprint
Sound
Webcam
Fan Control
Hibernation

Introduction

Nearly everything works out of the box.

The following is the list of things which took me a bit more to configure.

Before installation

One of the NVMe disks was not using the optimal block size and, following https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Advanced_Format, I reformatted it.

Fingerprint

Install fprintd

Sound

Install sof-firmware

Webcam

Install libuvc.

Fan Control

This took me a bit more time, since the instructions on the ArchWiki do not work if you follow the “nominal” flow.

The main issue is fan control needs to be explicitly enabled in thinkpad_acpi at boot.

There are two options:

zcfan
thinkfan

Enable fancontrol at runtime

(Re)load the thinkpad_acpi module enabling fancontrol:

echo "options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/thinkfan.conf
sudo modprobe -rv thinkpad_acpi
sudo modprobe -v thinkpad_acpi

(Snippet adapted from https://github.com/vmatare/thinkfan/issues/45#issuecomment-658830584.)

Enable fancontrol at boot

thinkpad_acpi is early loaded and fancontrol=1 must be set as a kernel parameter.

Set thinkpad_acpi.fan_control=1 in /etc/default/grub and rebuild the configuration (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel_parameters).

Test fans can be controlled

Test that fans can be controlled:

cat /proc/acpi/ibm/fan
echo level 1 > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan

zcfan

zcfan is a zero-configuration fan control system. Install it, enable it and you should be ready to go.

thinkfan

Install thinkfan from the AUR

yaah thinkfan
cd thinkfan
makepkg -si

Fancontrol requires a bit of configuration, an example is provided by the Gentoo Wiki. This is also suggested in the ArchWiki — https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Fan_speed_control/thinkfan#Configuration):

cat > /etc/thinkfan.conf
sensors:
  - tpacpi: /proc/acpi/ibm/thermal
    indices: [0]

fans:
  - tpacpi: /proc/acpi/ibm/fan

levels:
  - [0, 0,  41]
  - [1, 38, 51]
  - [2, 45, 56]
  - [3, 51, 61]
  - [4, 55, 64]
  - [5, 60, 66]
  - [6, 63, 68]
  - [7, 65, 74]
  - [127, 70, 32767]

Another possibility is having a look at the following resources:

Thinkfan setup, which also provides some hints on how to view temperatures
man 5 thinkfan.conf

Enable the thinkfan service and reboot:

systemctl enable thinkfan.service
reboot -h now

Hibernation

When trying to hibernate, the system would immediately deactivate and journalctl would report the following:

Nov 15 10:03:01 coridan systemd[1]: Starting Hibernate...
Nov 15 10:03:01 coridan systemd-sleep[3726]: Entering sleep state 'hibernate'...
Nov 15 10:03:11 coridan systemd-sleep[3726]: System returned from sleep state.
Nov 15 10:03:11 coridan systemd[1]: systemd-hibernate.service: Deactivated successfully.
Nov 15 10:03:11 coridan systemd[1]: Finished Hibernate.
Nov 15 10:03:11 coridan systemd[1]: systemd-hibernate.service: Consumed 1.667s CPU time.

The solution, which is in the ArchWiki (and also at this link: https://forum.manjaro.org/t/thinkpad-p16-sleep-and-hibernation-problems/134682/8), consists in setting the hibernation mode to shutdown:

cat > /etc/systemd/sleep.conf.d/hibernate_mode.conf
[Sleep]
HibernateMode=shutdown