And of course I’m installing Linux on it. Install went well, even the fingerprint sensor built in to the laptop works.
Mostly this will be a school and DND machine but always nice to have a functional laptop for whatever else I may need it for.
Excellent OS choice - great for noobs and veterans alike.
Thinkpads are great. But how did you get the fingerprint scanner to work? Mine does not work.
I followed this guide, worked right out of the box:
https://github.com/SeniorMatt/How-to-enable-fingerprint-in-Linux-Mint-for-T480
I have 2 ThinkPads - a Yoga 370 and a Yoga X13, both running different Linux flavours and they’re honestly the best laptops I’ve ever had. Very capable, sturdy, great keyboards, working touchscreens, pens and fingerprint scanners, passwordless encryption with TPM+LUKS.
The 370 struggles a bit with heavy browser usage sometimes but otherwise they’re both rock solid
I miss my Yoga 730. Best laptop I’ve ever had. The 2-in-1 and pen support carried me through uni. All my lecture notes could be typed and diagramed as needed in the moment.
I got 5 T420s (nice) from my boss last year. Now they’re all running Linux and loaded up with late 90s, early 2000s games to play over LAN
Wow I literally just installed mint cinnamon on a T590 like an hour ago. Small world!
Great minds think alike haha. Good for you brother. Hope it works well for you.
All the best! My SO runs a T480s, the elegant one, for years now, switched to Debian after U went super-slow on her.
I went all fancy-schmancy with a Yoga x390, debian too.
Both cheap secondhand, both issue-free (and both with touchscreen!). Whish the official batteries where still available tho.
480s has a touchscreen? I need to check mine…
This one does. I think certain IPS models got the feature. Tbh, not really much of a touchscreen guy for laptops but I wont say no
Not all of them, we were lucky I think. Yoga’s have it by their very 2-in-1 nature, nice little things, classy matte black like any Thinkpad should be.
INSTALL GENTOO
First stockings, then gentoo
ARE YOU KIDDING? STOCKINGS ARE FOR NERDS – ARCH USERS – AND ONE CERTAIN FALLEN ANGEL FROM HEAVEN. NEWPORTS AND SHITTY INSTANT COFFEE ARE THE GENTOO PREREQUISITES.
Ah sorry I forgot. I thought stockings are for ThinkPad owners
Not for the weak of heart. If they’re not well introduced I may suggest an arch install by hand first. I wonder how like it’ll take to compile FF on that Thinkpad.
emerge firefox-binezpzI CHANGED MY MIND THEY NEED TO DO LFS
I really want to know why we are staring at basically the same screen from decades ago. Why isn’t GRUB menu a fancy little thing by now?
When I was a kiddo, dabbling in duel boot, I remember this screen. It was slightly more basic, but pretty much the same. I always figured it would eventually get upgraded to something more… I don’t know, fun to look at? Something minimal, but also customizable… background image, background music, maybe a menu for doing customizations right there… like what options are to be shown.
No… it’s pretty much the same. Why?
Edit: I realize that I am stupid. It’s because GRUB needs to survive when everything else is broken. GRUB is the first and last standing soldier. Its simplicity is a feature enabling that capacity. But also, you can customize GRUB if you want… so I am just dumb. Have a good day.
yeah you already said it in your edit, but just to respond anyways:
grub’s simplicity is a feature. it does one thing and does it well.
There is no software that does theming for GRUB that doesn’t break it badly and was stopped mid development and GRUB 2.0 takes deep knowledge of how it works to theme it without breaking it.
Hell the little bit of theming they added to Ventoy has them slowing GRUB updates to make sure that it is tested and tested again before they roll it out and break everyone’s install without knowing it.
I plan on doing it but I really don’t have time for it right now or any time in the future.
You can absolutely rice your GRUB install. I haven’t used it in a hot minute, but I definitely had ones in the past that were themed.
Because there is very little overlap between “programmers who design the systems to be as efficient and reliable as possible” and “UX designers who consider elegance and ease of use, even if it means the install is a few extra MB in size”.
Tons of FOSS UIs tend to fall into one of three categories:
- CLI. Maybe a third-party GUI exists.
- Laughably horrendous monstrosities that make early 90’s websites look good
- A direct ripoff of a paid software that has actual UX designers.
It’s because the people designing the FOSS aren’t UX designers, so they either make their best guess at it (the laughably horrendous choice) or they just copy whatever paid software they’re trying to replace.
Why isn’t GRUB menu a fancy little thing by now?
Because you can’t improve on perfection
It’s because GRUB needs to survive when everything else is broken. GRUB is the first and last standing soldier.
And there you are, right on the raggedty edge. Well done, Sir or Madam.
I dunno, I run Debian and my GRUB looks like this:
It’s not a real ThinkPad if it doesn’t have a keyboard frontlight.
If it has a red clit, it’s a ThinkPad, that’s the only rule.
No matter how niche the topic, there will always be at least one person willing to gatekeep it.
Congrats on the Thinkpad. I look forward to your next post on /c/unixsocks.
Cool! What model did you get? Despite the high prices right now, I’m also considering a new one right now, because my old one, which I love, does start to show its age a bit.
T480 but I’m wondering 7th or 8th gen Intel. Both options were offered.
Its 8th gen. Intel Core i5-8350U.
Well done, super capable 4 core device. I’m typing on a T580 now and it’s still my low power machine (let’s the desktop power chewer stay off most of the time) a decade+ later. Hunt down the dock, super nice, and replace the TN screen if that’s what you have (horrible, but a sub$100 upgrade, it’s lego, you can do it)
Enjoy, I have. Easily one of my best computer purchases.
I made sure to get the IPS model so no TN for me. And yea so far, seems to work well.
just recently i’ve installed cachyos (after a few months of mint) on my t420 and it works really well for instance the partial battery charge works (on mint you need to install extra stuff and configure via file, on cachy it’s just part of the power settings)
but also generally i feel it’s a bit quicker and prettierWhat do you mean by partial battery charging? I noticed the battery readout isnt exactly accurate so far but I’m not sure if that’s what you mean.
You can limit your battery charging, so it doesn’t charge to 100% by default. It’s better for your battery life, because Li+ batteries lose more capacity when they’re fully charged and discharged. So keeping them somewhere between the 30-85% range will dramatically extend the life of the battery.
Ah OK that makes more sense.
sorry maybe i phrased it wrong
instead of charging to 100% you can limit it to max 80% and only charge it from below 60% for example, it supposedly helps with the battery life
I have cachy aswell not on my thinkpad im still running endevour there do you use plasma as destop eviorment
yeah, i wasn’t a fan of plasma, but i’ve used it on my desktop and my deck and i got quite fond of it
What did you use before
I love how even modern Linux distros run so damn well on what’s considered today ‘outdated’ hardware.
I love Linux Mint btw! I think you did a great choice! Even though it’s known as the beginner friendly distro, I think it’s just a damn great distro for pretty much anyone, experienced or newbies. Fantastic choice!
Yea i wanted to give it a shot since ive been thinking of switching to mint on my desktop. Right now I run kubuntu on my main machine and for the past few years its been great, and the only thing thats really kept me has been KDE plasma. I may just bite the bullet and install plasma in mint cause so far, I’m still not a fan of cinnamon.
And by outdated, like 2015. Old E7440s or even older work great with added memory. New battery and you have a nice laptop out of the e waste pile. The only weak spot are drives, SSDs are expensive so to stay cheap you might have to use old spinny in there.
More like 2005
Pentium m laptops are almost useable. The biggest issue is the lack of 32 bit software.
I’ve got a Acer Aspire One with an Atom in it that I still use. The form factor is awesome, I wish it was 64 bit and 4 gig though. Just use it for emergency firewall management as I don’t think it is getting updates.
Some of those atoms use weird powervr graphics that aren’t supported by anything. Mine has an ati gpu which is helpful.
Welcome aboard! L15 Gen2A(MD) here. :)
Hell yea! Welcome to the Thinkpad Owners Club.
I have a L440, I was not able to find a T440 on a decent status. Solid laptop, enjoy!
