Installing Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia on a Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen-2

I recently acquired a Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 2 in the post in the middle of lock-down due to the pandemic. With great excitement I went to rid myself of the Microsoft operating system I was forced to accept to buy the hardware (a very unfair tax in my view) and replace it with my favourite, Linux Mint, desktop operating system in its current incarnation, version 19.3, codename Tricia, with a Cinnamon desktop environment. Alas I came across two problems.

1. The "Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2x2 AX" wireless card wouldn't work.
2. I couldn't add a second screen via the HDMI or USB-C ports.

Well after a lot of messing around it is now working fully.

Problem 1 - No network

The new network card does not have kernel support with the default Linux Mint 19.3 Tricia kernel version 5.0.0.32.34.

I upgraded to the latest kernel, version 5.6.13 and this problem disappeared.

    ~$ uname -r
       5.6.13-050613-generic

Problem 2 - No second screen

This problem appeared when I plugged in a second screen, initially via the USB-C port and remained when I used the HDMI port. The second screen requires the Nvidia-440 video driver for the Nvidia Quadro T2000 Graphics Processor, installed on the hardware, and version 440.82 is required to work with Linux kernels version 5.4 and above.

Problem resolution

The problem was resolved by installing kernel version 5.6.13, and nvidia-440.82 version of the video driver. That fixed both the networking issue and the second monitor issue.

    ~$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa		
    ~$ sudo apt-get update
    ~$ sudo apt-get install nvidia-driver-440

Reboot the system to update the driver in the kernel

    ~$ modinfo nvidia| grep ^version
       version:        440.82

Tips

Changing kernels can be painful; however, I used a useful utility ukuu which makes changing kernels a breeze.

The resolution on the second monitor may look off when you get it working initially. Adjusting using Preferences → Display tool doesn't work. That is because the Nvidia-440 has its own tool called nvidia-settings.

1. Run up this tool and select X Server Display Configuration
2. Highlight the second display (assuming the laptop screen is Prime)
3. Click Advanced and adjust the ViewPortIn: and Panning: variables to what you want, say 2560x1600