181. Thinkpad Kontrolldaemon tpb unter Ubuntu automatisch starten lassen
add a file named /etc/udev/rules.d/80-tpb-nvram.rules containing:
KERNEL=="nvram", GROUP="nvram", MODE="0640"
Now, add your user to the nvram group. This group is created by tpb installation script. Now you /dev/nvram is readable by you, and tpb loads successfully from Xsession.d.