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.
Awesome, welcome to the club!
I just upgraded from a T420 (bought new) to an X13 Gen 3. I like the much better screen and the much lower weight, but I miss the old style keyboard…
I got an old HP ProBook from my parents because they got a new one. I also installed Linux Mint on it :D Everything works, the keyboard lights, the wifi, the preset buttons work the same.
it’s really fun trying out Linux on older hardware. Don’t know when was the last time I had fun with playing around tech stuff. Linux really made it fun again for me
there’s currently a retired T420 in my home and a stalwart E15 assisting me with my everyday computing needs.
make sure you say ‘thank you for your service’ every morning.
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.
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.
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.
Why isn’t GRUB menu a fancy little thing by now?
Because you can’t improve on perfection
If you wanted, you could make a clean and capable boot picker like Apple does with their macs and frankly every hackintosh does. But we don’t. Because nerdcore is a thing.
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.
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.
I feel like an old ThinkPad is like a right of passage on Linux. Just about everyone I know who uses Linux has had one at some point or another.
A T440p running Antergos got me through college. I regret selling it since that thing served me well 🫡
I love selling things that have served me well - it feels better knowing that they’re helping someone instead of sitting in a drawer, untouched.
Fair point! In this case, I sold it to my brother who got through a fair bit of university with it so it did help a lot of people.
I get sentimental about tech that I used for a while though so I kind of hoard it all now that I don’t need to sell the device to replace it
I used to use an old consumer Yoga, and now a new ThinkPad. Some say it’s the wrong way around, I say I want more than 2 cores and 8GiB of RAM. (Un-)Fortunately, I got hooked on the Nix and Tiling-WM drugs quite soon, and so there wasn’t a lot of distrohopping.
Congrats on the Thinkpad. I look forward to your next post on /c/unixsocks.
Excellent OS choice - great for noobs and veterans alike.
Mint is great, LMDE is even better; same newbie friendliness, away from Ubuntu specifics
As a newb, could you please help me understand why you prefer Debian to Ubuntu?
In this context,it’s to make newcomers get used to a more open ended version of Linux that has derivatives, to get more mainstream versions of packages so that if they eventually want something more specific, they are learning slight tweaks.
Ubuntu is Debian with a layer of idiosyncratic things applied to it, the new user will need to unlearn those idiosyncrasies and apply new ones.
Also Ubuntu has some controversies associated with it, so the new user should stick to something more … Whatever the antonym of controversial is
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!
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.
T480, a gentelman and a scholar
Be careful of USB C ports. They are unreliable but absolutely required to charge.
I know, one is dead
Oof will keep an eye on that. Thanks for the tip!
Gentle on disconnect. Im using a 90 bend connector that is permanently on the remaining USB c connector.
If that fails too, will just spend a couple hundred and buy another Lenovo laptop. No huhu
Is this an issue for all thinkpads or that particular model?
At very least the Lenovo for a year or two around the time of the t480 and t490. Early USB C laptops requiring USB c charging really wasn’t rated properly for the constant plugging/unplugging.
HELL yeah! I have an E16 and it plays Factorio and other simple games (plus emulators) so it’s perfect! And of course it’s running Mint. :D
(simple graphically. Factorio is not simple. lol.)
My Thinkpad (X201) can’t even play Terraria well but I love it. :)
Welcome to the cult :)
“Excuse me, are y’all with the cult?”
“We’re not a cult. We’re an organization that promotes open source”
“Yeah, this is it”
I am home, brother. :)
Enjoy your Linux journey! You’ll be glad to have done it.
Ive actually been using Linux for a few years now, but I needed a laptop so figured this would be a good choice. But I am enjoying Linux very much!
Good stuff. And no difference. I’m always learning something new about Linux. And that’s what makes it amazing. Truly a freedom operating system
INSTALL GENTOO
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.
I CHANGED MY MIND THEY NEED TO DO LFS
