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I'm relatively unfamiliar with Linux. I'm getting a ThinkPad T460 and want to install Mint on it. Is there anything about the T460 I should know?

It’s probably been 15 years since I’ve used Linux and Mint seems to be the recommended distro for people who aren’t all that familiar with Linux like me, but I didn’t know if there was anything I should know with this ThinkPad model that anyone is familiar with. My searching around shows people saying everything from it was painless to install to they had tons of issues and I have no idea how common either one is.

So any advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

onlinepersona ,

There are a bunch of probes in the linux hardware database. You can check what they are like for your exact model.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks!

bartolomeo ,
@bartolomeo@suppo.fi avatar

I took a quick look at the specs and the T460 has 2 cores and uses DDR3 ram, so even though Linux is much lighter on resources than Windows, this laptop might not last you too long, considering how heavy even basic web browsing is these days. This computer will choke if you have a lot of tabs open, especially if you have things other than the browser open. I also noticed it has TPM, so just double check that you can replace the OS on this particular machine.

An alternative would be the T480, which would give you more mileage but can’t usually be had for under $100 like the T460.

Glhf!

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

It’s what I could afford.

seathru , (edited )
@seathru@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

IIRC Mint 21.3 had a touchpad driver keyboard issue on some Thinkpads. It looked like a simple fix if you are effected tho.

Installing Mint on my Thinkpad Yoga was easier than installing Windows. Everything worked right out of the box.

Edit: keyboard not touchpad.

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks. You don’t happen to know if there’s a list of the models that have that issue and/or a page on how to fix it, do you?

seathru ,
@seathru@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Oops, it was a keyboard issue that affected Thinkpads. It’s in the release notes www.linuxmint.com/rel_virginia.php

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks!

CorrodedCranium ,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo#Lenovo

This page from the Arch Wiki might be a good start

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Is Arch similar enough to Mint to make any issues there the same?

CorrodedCranium ,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

I’d say for the most part. The Arch Wiki does a decent job at least pointing users in the right direction. The path to solving it may be a bit different. For example you may need to find the equivalent package on Mint and it might have a different name.

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Great, thanks!

Shareni ,

From what I’ve seen, hardware issues usually come from the hardware manufacturer and not the distro. For example on my t480 the CPU is perma throttled because intel didn’t release a patch.

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

That is not good news. I do not want a perma throttled CPU. I’m not going to be doing anything that would require it. So I hope the T460 doesn’t have that problem.

lilith267 ,

Did you change your bios settings to performance? I had the same problem but changing both bios and power management to performance finnaly let my CPU boost to advertised speeds

Shareni ,

Also t480? This is the only solution I found online, but I didn’t try it out.

lilith267 ,

Also t480 - i5-8350u CPU.

My process was to update firmware with fwupd -> change TLP to performance(depending on desktop environment you may have a battery life settings panel) -> reboot into bios and change power settings to performance.

Ran a benchmark and my CPU was running at full power when it was limiting itself to 2Ghz before.

Phil35 ,
@Phil35@fosstodon.org avatar

@FlyingSquid
Hi,
congratulations
I am a linux user on thinkpad since decades: T40 (2004), T42, T420, T450, T480 and now as I am retired, I bought a T470.... still happy
About firmware, the T470 runs with ubuntu and firmware is updated when needed. I don't know with Mint.
be happy with the 🐧
@linux

gerdesj ,

Mint is lovely, as are all other Linux distros. However, if you want the latest stuff without going off piste and compiling it yourself, then a rolling, bleeding edge distro might appeal to you. You do mention that you have prior Linux experience.

I own a UK based IT company (as you do) with two other partners (I’m MD and not a doctor) and a slack handful of (lovely - obvs) employees. I personally like Arch on my gear. I used to sport Gentoo but my nadgers complained about being overheated too often. I still have a fair few Gentoo VMs lying around the place.

You might like to try a manjaro.org effort - I prefer the Plasma desktop spin (KDE). That’s Arch with a few more GUIs. Their Konsole is quite something with zsh and a very stylish prompt.

So far I have managed to get Linux to work on everything I have access to which is rather a lot of hardware. Back in the day wifi was a bit wanky and there was ndiswrapper but nowadays I generally find that laptops from HPE and Dell are just as well supported with Linux as Windows, often better.

I finally ditched Windows on my stuff at Windows 7 - that was my wife’s laptop - a GPU update screwed up and that was the final straw. She has been an Arch user for a good seven years and could not give a shit about what is running on her laptop, provided it works and does stuff.

FlyingSquid OP ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Thanks, but I think Mint will be fine for my purposes. This isn’t going to be a workhorse machine or anything. And I’m not really a gamer either.

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