You can say bye to your classic Thinkpad soon

[mikemex]

According to this article, the Mesa DRI code supporting most older graphics chipsets (i965 tree) is going to be deprecated soon. The new driver appears to support only Haswell and above.

Meaning that in 2025, when Windows 10 is finally discontinued, there will probably no way to run a modern OS of any kind on any of such machines. Which is a shame because I still think a Core 2 Duo with 8GB of RAM and an SSD is modern enough for regular use.

I discovered this investigating why hardware acceleration isn't working on my X301. It seems like intel just cheapened out -as usual- on support and arbitrarily decided not to implement OpenGL 3.x on GM45 level hardware (Cantiga), even though it supports pretty much all of the required features. And now that pretty much all software has moved on to OpenGL 3.x, almost nothing enables hardware acceleration on such old hardware (which contributes to the already perceived "slowness").

P. S. I was considering volunteering to update the driver but there seems to be zero programming documentation on such chips.

[RealBlackStuff]

It also means that you should say goodbye to Windows NOW and start learning Linux or some other OS...
That way any old Thinkpad will keep on running.

[TPFanatic]

Keyword: up-to-date.
Even many up-to-date Linuxes require PAE/NX, or no longer support 32-bit, which rules out plenty classics.
So as the world moves on, us classic-using stick-in-the-muds are stuck with older OSes anyway.
And coincidentally I subscribe to the belief that Windows 7 is the last good Windows, so I'm quite happy sticking with it.

[dr_st]

And coincidentally I subscribe to the belief that Windows 7 is the last good Windows, so I'm quite happy sticking with it.

For the laptops in your signature, I would agree (although T430 generation is already quite happy with Win10).

[mikemex]

And coincidentally I subscribe to the belief that Windows 7 is the last good Windows, so I'm quite happy sticking with it.

Don't fool yourselves: Windows 10 is superior in almost very way to Windows 7. The reason most of us keep using W7 is that it was the last stand-alone version of Windows, with local software installation and management, etc. This means that, once setup, it keeps working indefinitely (as a testament for that, I just decommissioned my old SSD and checked the Windows folder creation date: 2010. It just worked for 12 years without re-installation).

Since then, Windows became "Windows as service" and it's not expected to work indefinitely, but as long as manufacturers support it.

If you want to understand what I am talking about, go and take the dust off on one of those old multimedia CD-ROMs that relied on web pages to work. Back in the day, they looked great and worked fine. But 20 years later all they show is empty white boxes since the pages they point at disappeared long time ago.

I think most people keeps underestimating the big changes we're seeing around us.

[mikemex]

It also means that you should say goodbye to Windows NOW and start learning Linux or some other OS...
That way any old Thinkpad will keep on running.

Not sure what you're talking about...

[RealBlackStuff]

What I really meant to say was:
get rid of Windows NOW and install Linux or some other OS...
Some of my relatives use W10, and I am disgusted with W10 any time they ask me to do anything on their machines (all Thinkpads).
I'll stay with W7 as long as I can, no W10/W11/etc. ever, but I'm almost ready to switch to Linux Mint/Cinnamon.

[TPFanatic]

@mikemex: Could you elaborate on why you believe Windows 10 is superior to Windows 7?
In my experience 10 runs excessive background tasks; updates, security, telemetry; you can't turn them off and they never end.
10 is always changing and not necessarily improving. A funky setting of disabling mouse presses within a second of pressing a key used to be a discrete setting - until one of the updates lumped it into "touch sensitivity".
10 has both a Metro Settings App and the Windows 7 Control Panel with some redundancy, eg. both can be used to uninstall some programs.
The last time I booted my Windows 10 partition on my P71, it background-flashed new Intel ME Firmware without my permission. I formatted the partition after that.
I am the admin of my computer. I want the computer to do what I want, not what someone else thinks I should want.
Hell, the last time I tried Ubuntu on a ThinkPad it tried to sneak a BIOS update in with its own updates. Hell no.

[dr_st]

I'm going to quote myself from a different thread:

The Win10 kernel is better than that of Win7, because kernel-wise every Windows NT version was better than the last with no exceptions. The UI, though, is a mixed bag and a lot of it is a matter of preference. Forced updates can be turned off in Pro/Enterprise, but if you have Win10 Home, you are at the mercy of 3rd party tools which frequently stop working when Microsoft changes something.

[unixed]

Hell, the last time I tried Ubuntu on a ThinkPad it tried to sneak a BIOS update in with its own updates. Hell no.

Which thinkpad and what lead you to believe it was trying to update the BIOS?

[axur-delmeria]

Which thinkpad and what lead you to believe it was trying to update the BIOS?

AFAIK Thinkpads starting from the T460 generation support BIOS updates on Linux via fwupd. It's possible that Ubuntu is configured to regularly check fwupd's firmware repository and apply any updates found.

[TPFanatic]

Hell, the last time I tried Ubuntu on a ThinkPad it tried to sneak a BIOS update in with its own updates. Hell no.

Which thinkpad and what lead you to believe it was trying to update the BIOS?

I don't recall which exact model, probably T500. A BIOS update showed up in the list of updates Ubuntu asked me about doing. Only other software I lnow that offer BIOS and firnware updates in with software updates is Lenovo Sustem Update software. Maybe Windows Updates will also prompt for Intel ME updates but I don't check for them....

[unixed]

Ubuntu has a good community so if you just search it or ask (or type the output in a search engine) you can find out how to turn off BIOS update notifications.
My guess is it wouldn't actually be able to update the T500 BIOS since neither the windows executable or the iso image has the decompressed BIOS image.
Ubuntu does a lot of hand-holding, a knowledgeable user can just install minimal Debian and add only required software and configure it to taste.

[unix_joe]

Use Debian. It just works. The distribution focuses on keeping software versions stable between major releases.

Ubuntu is going down the same path as Windows. There is absolutely zero reason to use any of the Debian derivatives these days. Every layer added on top of Debian introduces a layer of security vulnerability and quite frankly, incompetency from the distro maintainers.

Just use Debian.

[TheForgottenKing]

I don't recall which exact model, probably T500. A BIOS update showed up in the list of updates Ubuntu asked me about doing. Only other software I lnow that offer BIOS and firnware updates in with software updates is Lenovo Sustem Update software. Maybe Windows Updates will also prompt for Intel ME updates but I don't check for them....

T500 is far to ancient for Ubuntu to support BIOS updates through fwupd, are you sure you're remembering right? Generally these older models required a boot disk outside of Windows.

Also, for concerned i965 users: the graphics support for the W701ds was deprecated on Linux almost two years ago. Mine still works fine with the newest version and a flag. There will always be a workaround

[mikemex]

Use Debian. It just works. The distribution focuses on keeping software versions stable between major releases.

Ubuntu is going down the same path as Windows. There is absolutely zero reason to use any of the Debian derivatives these days. Every layer added on top of Debian introduces a layer of security vulnerability and quite frankly, incompetency from the distro maintainers.

Just use Debian.

I'll try Debian. The last time I tried I couldn't install it because, for some reason, Debian puts the networked image as the general version (not the Live DVD), which is super difficult to set up unless you already know what's going on.

[chomik]

Remember, that Windows 10 LTSC still exists. LTSC build will get security updates until 2027.

[skx]

Use Debian. It just works. The distribution focuses on keeping software versions stable between major releases.

Ubuntu is going down the same path as Windows. There is absolutely zero reason to use any of the Debian derivatives these days. Every layer added on top of Debian introduces a layer of security vulnerability and quite frankly, incompetency from the distro maintainers.

Just use Debian.

Amen...

[Dekks]

According to this article, the Mesa DRI code supporting most older graphics chipsets (i965 tree) is going to be deprecated soon. The new driver appears to support only Haswell and above.

Meaning that in 2025, when Windows 10 is finally discontinued, there will probably no way to run a modern OS of any kind on any of such machines. Which is a shame because I still think a Core 2 Duo with 8GB of RAM and an SSD is modern enough for regular use.

I discovered this investigating why hardware acceleration isn't working on my X301. It seems like intel just cheapened out -as usual- on support and arbitrarily decided not to implement OpenGL 3.x on GM45 level hardware (Cantiga), even though it supports pretty much all of the required features. And now that pretty much all software has moved on to OpenGL 3.x, almost nothing enables hardware acceleration on such old hardware (which contributes to the already perceived "slowness").

P. S. I was considering volunteering to update the driver but there seems to be zero programming documentation on such chips.

i915 which my X61,T60p runs isn't going away, so i'm not too worried. See link below for supported chipsets with i915

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Re ... re_support

Intel hw accel i.e VA-API has never worked on anything older than GMA 4500MHD and Core i5 Nahalem/Westmere CPU/chipsets. The GMA performance is pretty naff from running it on my X200 tablet back in the day. It was said that programming it was far more difficult due no dedicated VRAM, you could use upto 384MB system RAM to implement OpenGL.

[axur-delmeria]

Intel Graphics before the GMA 4500 didn't have much video decode capability anyway, so VA-API is pointless.

AFAIK hardware decode for these older IGPs is limited to MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, and is supported through the old XvMC API. Mplayer and xine can make use of XvMC; I don't know any other media player programs that do so.

[TPFanatic]

There is also the Broadcom video decoder option for older chipsets, so long as a Mini PCI-E slot is present.
viewtopic.php?t=122323

[heilong]

According to this article, the Mesa DRI code supporting most older graphics chipsets (i965 tree) is going to be deprecated soon. The new driver appears to support only Haswell and above.

Meaning that in 2025, when Windows 10 is finally discontinued, there will probably no way to run a modern OS of any kind on any of such machines. Which is a shame because I still think a Core 2 Duo with 8GB of RAM and an SSD is modern enough for regular use.

I'm not an expert on the topic, but doesn't the article say that the i965 driver is going to be removed because it's being replaced by the "Crocus" Gallium3D driver? And what is this Crocus?
> Crocus is the in-development Gallium3D driver focused on Intel Gen4 (i965 chipset) graphics through Gen7/Gen7.5 graphics with Haswell. Intel's modern Iris Gallium3D driver is what provides the OpenGL support for Gen8 Broadwell graphics and newer.
So, there will still be support for Gen4 and later graphics (Gen4 refers to Intel GPU generation, not the 4th Intel Core i3/i5/i7 CPU generation, aka Haswell). The old i965 driver is retired in favor of Crocus, because Crocus is mature enough to replace it.
So what is the problem here? Perhaps you just misunderstood the article?

As for Windows 10 and 2025. Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2021 will be getting updates until Jan 12, 2027. It's also likely that MS will release further LTSC versions and/or extend the (EOS) end of support date, as they've done in the past. Even Windows 7 still has the Windows 7 Extended Security Updates program ongoing.

Then there's Windows 11. At first glance, with requirements like Intel 8th generation or newer CPU, a TPM 2.0 chip, a GPU that supports DirectX 12, there's no way it would run on an older ThinkPad. But, according to Ars Technica:
> Technically, you can install Windows 11 on pretty much any PC that can run the 64-bit version of Windows 10, as we found in our testing. Windows 11 22H2 is no more or less restrictive than the original version of Windows 11 on that front, and once you have it installed, it will work and receive updates more or less normally, perhaps with some annoying nag messages.
I've already seen some people mention they're running Windows 11 on older ThinkPads without issues (e.g. Windows 11 on an X220).
MS doesn't recommend this, but they do provide ways to disable the hardware requirements checks.
MS probably just wants to reduce the amount of work for themselves, which is why they introduced these rather high hardware reqs.

[jxu]

MS desires control over users and will lock everything down behind proprietary software. I switched out of Windows once I saw how disturbing and ad-filled Windows 10 was.
Linux is built by the community so has better old hardware support, but don't expect any modern hardware features. I use Ubuntu daily on a modern Thinkpad and I haven't seen any severe incompetence from the Ubuntu team (yet).

[mikemex]

Yeah, I think I misread the article. Crocus goes back to GM45. Still, it's unlikely that they will ever revise such old drivers.

Every year it becomes harder and harder to keep running a classic Thinkpad. Many big changes since they were built.

[heilong]

Every year it becomes harder and harder to keep running a classic Thinkpad. Many big changes since they were built.

"This too shall pass" is a fact of life. As much as I love my Thinkpads (newest ones are W530/X230/X230t), I am resigned to the fact that sooner or later I won't be able to keep using them.
OS and/or software will not support the old hardware, parts will stop working and spare parts would not be available, performance will no longer be adequate - one of more of these will happen one day. I just hope it doesn't come too soon
I'll have to move on to something new, quite possibly not as good in some ways (but better in other ways). In terms of happiness, it's better to adapt to the changing environment, rather than cry over the long gone "good old days".

[MikalE]

My T520 is happily humming along on Win 11 and is still receiving updates after nearly a year.

No glitches, has never crashed or BSoD, and everything the system originally included is working perfectly.

One day I'll miss it...