Thinkpads And Linux: Anything Good In The Sub $400 Range?

[bmstrong]

I'm currently learning on a Dell Studio 1535 that's gasping for life and throwing as many distributions at it as I can. But I'd really like something to upgrade into. Everywhere I ask Thinkpads and Linux seem to go together. My budget is currently $400 and under. Can you guys suggest couple models to look at for general learning of Linux, road testing distributions, 1080 VLC movie playback, portability and extremely good WiFi?

Thanks!

[ZaZ]

Big, little or intermediate?

[skinnie]

X220 maybe? I don't know the prices. But my x230 runs happily arch Linux.

[bmstrong]

Big, little or intermediate?

I'm game for any and all. Looking for the best bang for my buck, size is not a concern.

[bmstrong]

X220 maybe? I don't know the prices. But my x230 runs happily arch Linux.

The one in your Sig? Did you upgrade yourself or preconfigure it? I'm trying to scrape another $100 together to widen my choices.

[skinnie]

X220 maybe? I don't know the prices. But my x230 runs happily arch Linux.

The one in your Sig? Did you upgrade yourself or preconfigure it? I'm trying to scrape another $100 together to widen my choices.

Yes. I pre configured it in lapstars.de
I only had the SSD (it came with 500gb 7200rpm)
I guess almost any X series will do well in Linux.
My suggestion is: prefer ssd to high performance cpus or ram (8gb is enough, I only bought with 16gb because it was only 45eur more than with 2x2Gb (it is Kingston brand)
Choose a distro and be happy.
I tried debian, mint (cinnamon), mint (matte), cinnarch (dead now, has other name) and now arch Linux with gnome and I am staying with it along windows 7 64b.

[bmstrong]

Choose a distro and be happy.

That's impossible. I'm like a cheap prostitute with distro's. That's all the fun. I've been averaging two a week at this point.

[jayton4]

I have lubuntu on my T410s, and I was really surprised at how easy it all was. I got everything I needed to work with very little googling. Thinking about trying out Mageia, as it worked better than I expected in a virtualbox.

The T410s is light and can be found cheap on ebay.

[skinnie]

I guess thinkpads don't have too much that can be wrong in linux.
Intel wifi cards - work just fine, if you have another models maybe you have to enabel restricted drivers or have no download/enable some driver/firmware.
Intel cpus - work fine
Intel graphics cards - work fine, drivers are very nice and get some speed improvements in updates (at least from what can I experience).
Nvidia graphic cards- from my old 2007/2008 experiences using restriced/nvidia drivers they work fine.
About other special things it is just googling.
For my X230 and arch linux I've seen this wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Le ... nkPad_X230 but I've only needed the brighness thingy.about power manager I've used TLP.

[bmstrong]

The T410s is light and can be found cheap on ebay.

I'm not an ebay kind of guy. How often do the X220/X230's pop up over here in the FS forums? I spent some time in the Lenovo Outlet this morning but wasn't impressed with the pricing. I'm happy to find one used and out of warranty if it means a much better price.

[Neil]

Various models pop up for sale regularly, but you might have to wait a few weeks for what you are looking for.

However, if you put a WTB ad in the marketplace, stating exactly what you are looking for, you will likely get offers from members within hours, or a few days, willing to sell just what you are looking for, or very similar.

[ZaZ]

How often do the X220/X230's pop up over here in the FS forums?

Not too often yet. I'd sell you mine, but it's above your budget. Another option for an less expensive ultraportable would be the X200. It's still a very capable ultraportable, though it's stick only, which I like. It doesn't offer the IPS option like the X220, but you can do the AFFS mod and get it for less than the X220 most likely if you don't mind getting your hands dirty. One thing to note is my X220i can do 1080p playback with the CPU in the lowest power mode while the X200 needed to be bumped up a notch, which means more fan noise.

[posscakes]

I thought Linux ran on just about anything Maybe i'm wrong? I've had a few thinkpads t20, t23, t40 and t410 all running some flavour linux at some point. I even had a powermac g4 running ubuntu 7.10 ppc and it went pretty well actually. t410 does an ok job i have seen them under 400 used on ebay have ok specs i5 cpu 8 gig ram max. thinkwiki.org is a pretty good resource if you need help getting things working, but for general stuff linux works out of the box mostly. My t410 has the hybrid onboard+discreet switchable graphics cards thing, the linux project / driver for this setup is called bumblebee though i'm not sure where its state of development is at exactly but i think it takes a little bit extra to set up properly, i just select onboard from the bios and run the intel video driver.

[ibidem]

X100e runs hot but is otherwise ~good, including with the radeon driver.
For "Thinkpad" wireless (Realtek) to work natively you need at least kernel 3.0, with
CONFIG_RTLWIFI=m
CONFIG_RTL8192SE=m
Though there's a driver from Realtek.
I use linux-phc and thinkfan; I suggest setting the fan speed to "level 7" at 60-70 reported temp. Once it goes over 70, you may be hard pressed to not hit the thermal emergency level.
Use either "conservative" or "powersave" governor-NOT ondemand or performance.
ALSA didn't work OOB here, so I use OSS4 which did.

FYI, an X120e should get you UVD/vdpau acceleration and OpenCL with Mesa.

[stuartf]

I had a self-installed mSata drive (ADATA) go bad after three months, I am on a poor internet connection in China and trying to reinstall windows here was a nightmare. I went a got Mint 15 ran it for a day or two from the USB and then installed it. The only thing that didn't work at all was the fingerprint reader, there are solutions out there but I am too busy to work it out.

This is on an x230, IPS