Debian 10 install on Thinkpad p53

The following is my account of installing Debian 10.5 onto a Lenovo ThinkPad P53

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Get a Debian install from here

At the time of writing, I chose;
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/10.5.0+nonfree/amd64/iso-cd/firmware-10.5.0-amd64-netinst.iso

Disable BitLocker from the installation drive and backup BitLocker Recovery Key, see here

Disable Secure Boot (while it is possible to install Debian with Secure Boot enabled, apparently it can prevent some code/applications from running)

Allow both UEFI and Legacy boot. (F9 is your friend here)

Choose UEFI as boot first (optional)

Flash install image onto a usb drive, I use https://www.balena.io/etcher/

Boot and use F12, choose the usb as the boot device.

Follow through the installation, I opted to install Debian onto the 2nd hard disk (the boot loader was installed automatically, I wasn't prompted where to install).

When rebooting, the grub menu then allowed me to choose Windows Boot Manager which allows me to continue to boot into Windows 10 if I so wish, note, you will need the recovery key on 1st boot after installing Debian though.

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Once Linux is installed and running;

Edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg by adding the line “psmouse.elantech_smbus=0” before "quiet"

This gets the touch pad working.

In addition to or alternatively (the latter needs to be explored);

To enable tap to click (tested with XFCE), (thanks to ramblingmoose);

apt update (if needed)

apt install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

Open Application Menu > Settings > Mouse and Touchpad

Ensure SynPS/2 Synaptics touchpad is selected.

Check Tap Touchpad To Click to enable.

It's also a good idea to adjust time for Disable Touchpad While Typing to a low value, 1 or 2 seconds should be fine.

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Install the NVIDIA driver

UPDATE: I have since found that installing the following additional packages removes an error, previously appearing when running the NVIDIA installer, although, the drivers did appear to be installed and working without these additional packages...

The error or warning mentioned ensuring they are installed, so;

apt install pkg-config

apt install libelvnd-dev

Download the appropriate driver from: https://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us

In my case, this was;

NVIDIA RTX/QUARDRO > QUADRO SERIES (NOTEBOOKS) > QUADRO T1000

and make it executable chmod +x *.run

It matters not whether you boot with the hybrid or discrete graphics card, the former will boot into X, the latter won't, but in any case, do an init 3 or kill X

Update the sources.list file (comment out the install cd entry)
apt-get update

Install the development tools package
apt install git build-essential

Install linux kernel headers package
apt install linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Run through the installer

./*.run

The following will check that the driver is properly installed and in use;

nvidia-smi

Reboot...

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Install the iwlwifi package.

git clone https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/iwlwifi/backport-iwlwifi.git # cd backport-iwlwifi/

make defconfig-iwlwifi-public

make -j4 && make install

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Install the Intel Wireless Driver

wget https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/_media/en/users/drivers/iwlwifi/iwlwifi-cc-46.3cfab8da.0.tgz

tar zxf iwlwifi*

cd iwlwifi*/

cp iwlwifi* /lib/firmware/

cp LICENSE* /lib/firmware/

modprobe iwlwifi

Reboot...

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See the following for more details

https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/lenovo_thinkpad_p1_gen2_debian_10_installation_v1.0.pdf

https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/lenovo_thinkpad_p53_p73_debian10_installation_v1.0.1.pdf