thinkbook-eink

A Linux driver and CLI toolkit for the E-ink lid display on the Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 1 (20TG).

As far as I know, this is the first working open-source Linux driver for this hardware. Lenovo only ever released a Windows driver, and the display has no official Linux support.

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How it was discovered

Running lsusb revealed:

Bus 001 Device 005: ID 048d:8951 Integrated Technology Express, Inc. ITE T-CON

The ITE IT8951 is a well-documented E-ink timing controller also used in Waveshare's Raspberry Pi E-ink displays. It communicates over USB using custom SCSI commands wrapped in standard USB Bulk Transfer (Command Block Wrapper / Command Status Wrapper protocol).

The vendor ID 048d and product ID 8951 are hardcoded in the IT8951's USB descriptor. Once identified, it was possible to use an existing Rust library (rust-it8951) to probe the device — and it responded immediately with the correct resolution (1920x1080) and firmware information. The protocol is fully compatible out of the box.

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Hardware compatibility

Model	Status
ThinkBook Plus Gen 1 (20TG)	Confirmed working
ThinkBook Plus Gen 2	Unknown — uses different hardware, may work
ThinkBook Plus Gen 4	See Tinta4Plus

The display controller reports:

• Resolution: 1920x1080
• Controller: ITE IT8951
• USB endpoints: 0x81 (IN), 0x02 (OUT)
• Standard commands: 12, Extended commands: 44

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Requirements

• Ubuntu/Debian-based Linux (tested on Ubuntu 25.10)
• Rust toolchain (curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh)
• Build tools (sudo apt install build-essential)
• Font for clock (sudo apt install fonts-ubuntu or fonts-dejavu)

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Installation

git clone https://github.com/LizardKing00/thinkbook-eink.git
cd thinkbook-eink
bash install.sh

Then log out and back in for the udev group change to take effect. After that all commands work without sudo.

To run eink-server automatically on boot, install it as a systemd service:

# Copy and edit the service file (replace REPLACE_ME_WITH_YOUR_USERNAME)
sudo cp eink-server.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/eink-server.service

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now eink-server

To update the binary while the service is running, stop it first — the OS will refuse to overwrite a running executable:

sudo systemctl stop eink-server
sudo cp target/release/eink-server /usr/local/bin/eink-server
sudo systemctl start eink-server

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Usage

Set a static image on the lid display

setbackside ~/Pictures/photo.jpg
setbackside ~/Pictures/wallpaper.png

Accepts any format supported by the image crate: JPEG, PNG, BMP, WebP, TIFF. The image is automatically resized, cropped, and converted to greyscale to fit the 1920x1080 display.

Live clock

eink-clock

Displays a large HH:MM clock with the current date, updating every minute. Press Ctrl+C to stop (the last rendered clock face remains on screen — E-ink is non-volatile).

Rough layout (1920x1080 E-ink):

+----------------------------------------------------------+
|                                                          |
|                         23:41                            |
|                                                          |
|                       2026-03-04                         |
|                                                          |
|                                                          |
|                                                          |
+----------------------------------------------------------+

Server dashboard (system stats)

eink-server

Shows a full-screen “server dashboard” with:

• Header: hostname label, current time and date
• Status bar: Nextcloud online/offline state, total users (optional), system uptime
• Stats row: RAM usage, root disk usage, CPU load, CPU temperature
• Graphs: upload/download network history

The dashboard updates once per minute.

To minimise E‑ink ghosting while keeping updates reliable:

• On each refresh eink-server first draws a GC16 clear frame to scrub previous content (white in dark theme, black in light theme).
• It then renders the new dashboard frame in DU mode, which matches the behaviour of eink-clock for fast, low-flicker updates.

This means you may see a brief flash once per minute, but the resulting image is much clearer and does not accumulate previous images (for example, after using setbackside to show a photo).

Rough layout (simplified ASCII preview):

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| SYS://NEXTCLOUD-NODE                                  10:32              04.03.2026  |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| [ NEXTCLOUD: ONLINE ]    TOTAL USERS: 3      UPTIME: 2D 04H 13M   UPDATED: 10:32     |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|  // RAM        |  // DISK       |  // CPU        |  // TEMP                          |
|                |                |      23%       |        55°C                       |
|                |                |   LOAD BAR     |        CPU TEMP                   |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| // UPLOAD                         // DOWNLOAD                                        |
|  TX: 1.2 MB/S                     RX: 3.4 MB/S                                       |
|  [ upload graph over time ]       [ download graph over time ]                       |
|        SPEED                                SPEED                                    |
|        TIME →                              TIME →                                    |
|  TX MB/S (LAST 60 MIN)            RX MB/S (LAST 60 MIN)                              |
|                                                                                      |
|  NEXTCLOUD URL: nextcloud.example.com                                                |
|  CFG: /etc/thinkbook-eink/server.toml                                                |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Display info

eink-info

Prints hardware and firmware information:

Vendor:    Generic
Product:   Storage RamDisc
Revision:  1.00
Resolution: 1920x1080
Firmware:  v65538

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Display modes

The driver exposes the following IT8951 refresh modes:

Mode	Quality	Speed	Best for
GC16	Full 16-level greyscale	Slow	Photos, detailed images
DU	Black and white only	Fast	Text, clock updates
A2	2-bit	Very fast	Animations
Init	Blank flash	—	Clearing between images

setbackside uses GC16 (best quality). eink-clock uses DU (fast, minimal flicker).
eink-server combines both: a GC16 clear frame to scrub ghosts (colour depends on theme), followed by DU for the actual dashboard frame.

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Configuration

All tools read /etc/thinkbook-eink/server.toml at startup. All keys are optional — omitting them keeps the defaults.

# Rotate the display 180 degrees.
# Useful if the laptop is mounted upside down or the lid is physically inverted.
# Default: false
#flip = true

# Colour theme.
# "dark"  = dark background, bright text (default)
# "light" = light background, dark text
#theme = "light"

# Nextcloud URL (no trailing slash) — eink-server only
#nextcloud_url = "https://localhost"

# Nextcloud credentials for version/latency checks — eink-server only
# Leave empty to skip; online/offline detection still works via status.php.
#nextcloud_user = "admin"
#nextcloud_password = "your-password-here"

A commented-out example is included in server.toml.example.

Applying config changes

If eink-server is running as a systemd service, restart it after editing the config:

sudo systemctl restart eink-server

To follow the logs and confirm the new settings were picked up:

journalctl -u eink-server -f

The startup line will show the active theme and flip state, for example:

Config: theme=light, flip=true

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Without sudo (udev rule)

The install script sets this up automatically. To do it manually:

sudo cp udev/99-thinkbook-eink.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
sudo udevadm trigger
sudo usermod -aG plugdev $USER
# log out and back in

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Using as a library

Add to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
thinkbook-eink = { git = "https://github.com/LizardKing00/thinkbook-eink" }

use thinkbook_eink::{Display, Mode};

fn main() -> anyhow::Result<()> {
    let mut display = Display::connect()?;

    println!("{}", display.info());

    let img = image::open("photo.png")?;
    display.clear()?;
    display.show(&img, Mode::GC16)?;

    Ok(())
}

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How it works

The IT8951 exposes itself as a USB Mass Storage device (hence the Generic Storage RamDisc product string). It accepts custom SCSI commands over standard USB Bulk Transfer endpoints:

1. CBW (Command Block Wrapper) — initiates a command with direction and length
2. Data phase — image data is chunked into 60KB transfers (IT8951 USB limit)
3. CSW (Command Status Wrapper) — confirms completion

Key commands used:

Command	Opcode	Purpose
INQUIRY	0x12	Get vendor/product/revision strings
GET_SYS	0xfe...0x80	Get resolution, firmware, buffer addresses
LD_IMAGE_AREA	0xfe...0xa2	Load image data into framebuffer
DPY_AREA	0xfe...0x94	Trigger display refresh
PMIC_CONTROL	0xfe...0xa3	Power on/off

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License

MIT — see LICENSE

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Credits

• Protocol reverse engineering based on rust-it8951 by Martijn Faassen
• ITE IT8951 USB Programming Guide (public documentation)
• Discovered and adapted for the ThinkBook Plus Gen 1 by LizardKing00

Aditional Advice

This great 3D-printable wall mount works well with Thinkbooks and allows an unobstructed view of the e-ink display.