I’m looking to mainly use it for school and was wondering if there’s any recommended distros out there for thinkpads.
Its a Lenovo Thinkpad T480.
ITT: Every distro
The question is so generic and open ended it’s not a surprise. The only filter on this is “runs well on ThinkPad” and “lightweight”, which are both up to interpretation
With 8 GB of RAM and 5500 CPU passmark points, that’s a good laptop for Linux Mint. Download their “edge” version of Mint, so you get the latest kernel (so it has more chances of supporting 100% that laptop).
DE is more important than distro in regards to RAM. Ubuntu runs on a pi, it should be good on any computer
This @[email protected]! I run Linux Mint on a T410 with 4 GB of Ram and a 250 GB SSD and the user experience is quite ok for normal day to day usage like playing light games, browsing and HD video streaming.
T410? Woah! I still mourn the death of my 420 with it’s Dome Light and rugged looks
I hope yours stay on, and on, and on!
so it has more chances of supporting 100% that laptop
its a thinkpad so i can be very sure it is very well supported whatever you decide to use, as long as it isnt ancient.
My wife has a T480s on standard 2022 LTS Ubuntu, it is a machine old enough to not need the latest edgy mint ; a friend of mine has had to install it on his 2023 X1 tho.
Standard Mint will do fine. Default DE is boring as hell, be sure to look at others like Gnome. I love Gnome.
Also, using “live” USB keys OP can try several distros and check what they find more attractive in the default state of a distro.
PopOS, Elementary, Fedora, Tumbleweed… So many of them.
I say Tumbleweed is best because of the perfect, seamless integration of BTRFS / Snapshotting / Rollback system. It is truly the best way to dip your feet into Linux and get it back working in a single click when you (inevitably) fuck up.
There’s nothing that makes it good for mint specifically.
Dude, it’s upgradeable, just put 32Gb in.
I use Debian stable on mine. I got 16gb of ram but tbh it’s never gone above six in real use, even with a windows vm running.
E: old thinkpad gang input: take the time to reapply thermal grease to the cpu at some point. It makes a huge difference.
I second Debian. It’s what Ubuntu should be, but can’t be, because Debian is already it.
Ubuntu is debian with corporate bs.
But snaps!
Note: I do still use their systray, but that’s it.
What’s a “gang input”?
E: old thinkpad gang input: take the time to reapply thermal grease to the cpu at some point. It makes a huge difference.
What’s a “gang input”?
😂 it’s an input to this discussion from a member of the group of people (“gang”) who have experience with old thinkpads. and yes, if your old thinkpad (or other laptop) is overheating and crashing, reapplying the thermal paste is a good next step after cleaning the fans.
Gang
Older Thinkpads are very well supported by pretty much everything, so it might be helpful to know more about your experience and what you’ve liked or not liked, and what you intend to run on it.
Linux Mint or Fedora aren’t bad options, Fedora will require a larger version upgrade at least yearly.
I think what matters most in your case is the desktop environment, not the distro. I would suggest something lightweight and fast such as Xfce with the distribution of your choice. Gnome and KDE tend to use (a lot) more resources than Xfce. I personally use Debian stable with Xfce on all my machines (which includes a Thinkpad x220), but the Xfce default settings are not ideal on Debian so you will need to fiddle with them (it can all be done easily with the GUI, but it isn’t the most user friendly experience at first). If you want something that looks good outside the box that resembles Windows I would suggest Linux Mint Xfce Edition, very straightforward and easy to use with good looking defaults !
I would agree with this to an extent, but we are still talking i5 with 8-16GB of RAM. Gnome or KDE shouldn’t be an issue here (unless/those devilish Snaps are involved).
They came with dual cores or quad cores but yeah basically anything would be fine.
You can’t go wrong with Debian or Fedora.
Debian. Hard to get more stable (to a fault, even) than Debian.
I use Linux Mint and currently Fedora on my Thinkpad.
SLACKWARE!!!
I agree with other users recommending Mint
Debian Stable or Testing. Runs on anything, and Stable - especially - will not let you down. Ubintu, Elementary and dozens of others are downstream of Debian. Bookworm is a great experience, so why not go to the source?
“Testing” is described as containing packages that are still in the queue to be accepted into Stable.
“Unstable” branch is all the newest stuff, whether it works or not.
If you’re in school for anything computer-related, once you’ve settled on a distro, you could also start playing with Gentoo.
Mint works well on my Thinkpads
Any distro should be fairly stable and supported on an older Thinkpad.
I’m currently using Debian stable on my X220 and it’s rock solid.
Will echo the recommendations of debian or mint. I have mint on my 13 year old rog laptop, it’s my lab computer and runs klipper for one of my printers, pretty much always up, very rarely reboots. Debian is what I run on my 4 year old zenbook s, pretty much perfect for my uses, it’s what I cart around for light/mobile work and I swear it actually has better battery life than it did running windows.
Debian or OpenSUSE. Can’t go wrong.
