Finding a laptop that is well supported by Linux, has nice features and is not too expensive can be quite a task. Lucky the Lenovo ThinkPad L460 fits my requirements.

OS

I decided to do a fresh install of Arch Linux instead of just cloning one of my other systems as I normally do. At the time of this post the laptop is running with Linux kernel version 4.6.2-1.

Relevant info from dmesg, dmidecode, lscpi and lsusb

For powersaving I have installed and configured TLP and nothing more.

Specs

CPU Intel i5-6200U (3MB Cache, up to 2.80GHz)
RAM 16 GB PC3-12800 DDR3L 1600MHz (2 × 8GB 1.35V 204-pin SODIMM, Samsung M471B1G73DB0-YK0)
Storage 256 GB Solid State Drive (SATA3, Samsung MZ7LN256HCHP-000L7)
Screen / Graphics card 14" FHD (1920 x 1080), IPS, AntiGlare / Intel HD Graphics 520
WIFI / Bluetooth Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC (2x2) 8260 / Bluetooth-version 4.1 vPro
Ethernet Intel PRO/1000 (I219-V)
UEFI Version R08ET41W (1.15), Option to disable secure boot: yes
Battery 6 cell Li-Ion (47Whr, Sanyo LNV-45N1)
Webcam 720p HD Camera, uses uvcvideo driver

Touchpad / Clickpad

The xf86-input-libinput driver was not very responsive and I had to move my finger a lot before it was registered, which made resizing windows and hitting small targets very hard. I replaced it with the xf86-input-synaptics and it works much better.

The next problem was that the cursor jumped down and to the left each time I tried to use the clickpad's left "button".

I ended up with the following options in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/55-synaptics.conf to fix that:

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier      "touchpad"
    Driver          "synaptics"
    MatchIsTouchpad "on"
    Option          "SoftButtonAreas"  "60% 0 82% 0 40% 59% 82% 0"
    Option          "AreaBottomEdge"       "90%"
EndSection

Graphics card / driver

I experienced a lot off screen flickering, so I tried the mode setting driver by uninstalling xf86-video-intel and xf86-video-vesa which fixes the problem, but that instead introduced screen tearing.

I update the UEFI to version 1.15 (which includes a new VBIOS version), Linux kernel to 4.6.x and the xf86-video-intel driver to version 2.99.917+662 and now the problem seems to have disappeared.

Two minor problems still persists, LightDM/Light-locker still flickers once after starting and after resume, but I just have to wait a second before entering my password.

Finally the cursor disappears after resume, this can be fixed by running xset dpms force off .

I have only set "TearFree" as an extra option in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf :

Section "Device"
  Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
  Driver      "intel"
  Option      "TearFree" "true"
EndSection

Overall

I like the overall build quality, the battery life feels okay, I just which the battery was smaller and not extending below the bottom of the laptop.

The Mini-DisplayPort to HDMI cable I bought as an accessory does not support sound, but that is just a minor inconvenience.