Lenovo Thinkpad E460 - Linux Mint 17.3

Marlhin

Marlhin

Member
Hey guys!

Today, my new laptop "Thinkpad Edge E460" has arrived which I mainly need for my studies and for some gaming from time to time (just older titles or CS:GO).
Because I don't have the time to install a proper Arch system on my new laptop, I've decided to install Mint 17.3 Rosa Cinnamon, just to have most of the things which I need already installed, so that I can start working right away.
Everything went fine so far but there are still a few issues left:

- because I have a hybrid graphical solution with AMD R7 M360 and Intel HD 520, I have already expected that there will be problems also because the hardware is pretty new. I have screen flickering from time to time, for example when I open up the menu and move my cursor around. My gaming performance is also pretty bad. For example, CS:GO runs on my old laptop with intel i3, 4GB RAM and intel HD 3000 pretty decent with 20-25 FPS on low settings on closed maps. With my new device, I always have around 10-15 FPS. I have also tried the proprietary driver but this didn't solve the problem.

- another thing is, every reboot I have to adjust my brightness level again. Usually I use the adjust brightness keys of my keyboard. How can I make it save my current brightness level?

- sometimes, when I adjust the brightnesslevel via keyboard keys, my system slows down badly. My cursor starts stuttering when I move the mouse.

- my wireless card didn't work at first but after a kernel upgrade to 4.4, it works flawlessly

- even on kernel 4.4 touchpad gestures aren't working but I guess there is an easy fix for that but I haven't got time to look it up on the Internet

My specs are:
Intel® Core™ i5-6200U Skylake processor
12GB RAM
AMD/ATI R7-M360 / Intel HD 520 Hybrid graphics
192GB SSD

Kernel 4.4
Cinnamon 2.8.6
Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa
 
Very nice laptop! I have a feeling a lot of problems is because of the AMD drivers. Is there a way you can only use the Intel video chip or is the AMD R7-M360 a dedicated card?

Did you try the Catalyst drivers before upgrading to the 4.4 Kernel? How was gaming performance then?
 
Thank you, Booman ;)
Well, I don't exactly know if there's a way to turn of the AMD card. The hybrid system is meant to switch cards depending on the current situation.
I have looked up in the bios if there's an option to turn of the dedicated GPU but there isn't one.
I've also heard, that you could change the gpu in the Catalysist Control Centre but it refused to work.
Because you need the fgrxl driver, I've installed them and tried to start ccc but it keeps saying that there is no proper driver found.

I may try the ccc before the kernel upgrade but than my wireless card won't work. :-/

Gaming performance was bad on both drivers (open-source and fgrxl).
 
Unfortunately this is the case for many gamers with AMD cards. Intel isn't much better, but at least their drivers are stable.
 
I don't expect a good gaming performance also because the AMD R7-360 is not considered as a gaming card but playing older titles with high fps should be possible since I can run CS:Source with 100+ fps with my 3 years old Lenovo E330 with 4GB RAM, Intel i3 and Intel HD3000 graphics.
But this is currently not possible with the Thinkpad E460 because of the my hardware is too new and it isn't supported by current linux drivers.
 
UGH! That really sucks! So you have to wait and test new drivers as they arrive?
 
May I suggest moving to a distribution like OpenSUSE Leap? Linux Mint is pretty much based on 14.04 and really old packages. Their KDE is very polished, I have no doubt that their GNOME 3 may be polished as well. (It's not like Fedora *cough* they have GNOME 3 polished but KDE is left behind... well, not surprised).
 
allenskd said:
May I suggest moving to a distribution like OpenSUSE Leap? Linux Mint is pretty much based on 14.04 and really old packages. Their KDE is very polished, I have no doubt that their GNOME 3 may be polished as well. (It's not like Fedora *cough* they have GNOME 3 polished but KDE is left behind... well, not surprised).
Click to expand...
Do you think this will help his driver issues?
 
They use kernel 4.1.x series. AMD driver improvements are included :) Other at best it's worth a try, I'm not sure if it will fix _all_ your issues, hopefully it will. He could try the live dvd without installing it.

At best... it's AMD ... and I don't really have pretty things to say about AMD driver support sadly.
 
You think it might be better to use a Distro that is based on the newest kernel instead of Mint and upgrading the kernel?
I would have never thought of this...
 
At this stage it's just drivers... if I'm not mistaken... kernel should harbor all drivers per se, but drivers detection does all the heavy-lifting in some way. In ubuntu, while as good as it is might not detect new hardware using Mint (through ubuntu-drivers cli). (for example, you can use ubuntu-drivers to install the right nvidia drivers for your card).

Whether it will work or not... hard to say, sadly. New hardware is still linux's weakness unless all manufacturers decides to support linux...
 
For gamers that is a sad thing to deal with. Computers that are too old have performance problems, computers that are too new have performance problems. At least the new computer will eventually be supported. :cool:
 
[Update]: Yesterday I got my laptop back. I had to resent it because of a broken key. Now, I have tried Linux Mint Mate edition and the screen tearing and flickering is gone. Gaming perfomance is also better but it is not as good as it could be.
But as far as newer drivers are on the way it is okay for the moment also because I don't have the time for gaming because of exams. But I can work with my laptop and that's the most important thing for me.

But in case I want to play a little bit, i've tested CS:GO again and besides the performance the only major problem left is, I think, best explained with screenshots:

screenshotat2016-01-22101017.png

screenshotat2016-01-22101023.png


The game is as green as my Linux Mint! :)
 
What the... !!!???
Guess you are playing the "yellow" version :p
This has to be driver related... very strange.
Guess I've seen stranger... but this it out-of-the-ordinary.
Notice the map and icons are the correct colors, just the in-game shaders are screwed up.
 
Haha, yes, indeed! The drivers are currently messing things up. It is also very funny that the killcam is rendered in almost the correct shadercolours.
Guess I just have to wait for new drivers or Linux Mint 18. Or I get the time after my exams to install my lovely Arch Linux again.
 
You could just watch for the new drivers and install them in Mint I guess
 
The pea soup green reminds me strongly of my first color monitor, a 13" IBM CRT. It was in love with that ugh shade of green, nothing else would display. Oh well, it was used and cheap.
 
I remember having a Macintosh at home with a grayscale monitor.
 
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