Linux distro for Thinkpad T23 in 2017

[gnutemberg]

Hello everyone!

Long time lurker, this is my first post.

I have an old t23, any xorg > 1.13 doesn't work. I'm currently on debian wheezy due to that. Even puppy tahr is pretty choppy and laggy.

I've read a guide on Arch Linux forum, but it really seems that there's no way to bypass and upgrade the now obsolete xorg 1.13.

Is there a way to install a "modern" linux distro on my old t23?

Thank you very much

[Dekks]

With arch install Xorg 1.18 get the xf86 savage driver from AUR and that will work. Having said that the card is pretty woeful and will only be of any use in 2D.

[Hierax_ca]

Try:

AntiX 16.1 (2017-01-16)
- https://sourceforge.net/projects/antix- ... o/download
or if you are comfortable with a Linux cli install :
- https://sourceforge.net/projects/antix- ... o/download

MX-16 (2017-03-10)
- http://mxrepo.com/snapshots/MX-16_March_386.iso

Both of these are nice sweet stable Debian 8.7 distros with lots of configurable options and useful tools.

AntiX 17 uses Debian 9 and it will be out soon but right now it's only in Alpha2 now:

- https://sourceforge.net/projects/antix- ... o/download

I don't have a T23 but, FWIW, I've successfully installed these on a variety of computers going way back to my 1998 Toshiba Tecras 780dvd with 266MHz and 128-192MB RAM (works but only crawls unless doing cli), 2000-ish Thinkpad 600x with 500-850MHz and 576MB RAM (works for basics but a bit too slow for heavier software, merely walking), and 2002-ish Thinkpad A31p with 2.0GHz 2GB RAM (works fine, a nice jog, and faster with the mSATA-IDE adapter), and 2005+ T43p and all the way up to W520 (run great).

Because T23 is a bit older, and probably similar to an A31p era, I'd try AntiX first, it's a very light OS (I use min-jwm desktop for 600x and A31p), MX-16 used XFCE is more fully featured but a bit more resource intensive. Only way to know if it'll work for your T23 is to burn some these live isos and give 'em a try... I hope that this helps.

[kfzhu1229]

Puppy Linux should be fine if you use the faster variants of PIIIM Tualatin (1.13ghz, 1.2ghz or 1.26/1.33 if you can find one because they are EXTREMELY RARE) with a gig of RAM.
On the Windows side, W2k is the most responsive and stable one. If you want the newest stuff as possible, try Windows 7 with Firefox 48

[micrex22]

Puppy Linux should be fine if you use the faster variants of PIIIM Tualatin (1.13ghz, 1.2ghz or 1.26/1.33 if you can find one because they are EXTREMELY RARE) with a gig of RAM.
On the Windows side, W2k is the most responsive and stable one. If you want the newest stuff as possible, try Windows 7 with Firefox 48

Because of the serious vulnerability risks with old x86 NT, I wouldn't recommend W2K unless it's being used exclusively offline.

OS/2 and Linux would be the way to go for a T23.

[78bash]

Hi gnutemberg,

I'm a longtime lurker as well and this is my second post My first is related to this one.

I just installed Debian 9 Stretch on my ancient T23 (love it) and it runs xfce at full 1024x768 resolution with its beautiful screen.

For reviving this old laptop, Stretch is great. Ofcourse, don't expect to watch youtube videos on it..

[jaspen-meyer]

For reviving this old laptop, Stretch is great. Ofcourse, don't expect to watch youtube videos on it..

You can watch youtube videos just fine on a T23, install mplayer and smtube.org
apt-get install mplayer

On debian 8:
echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositori ... ebian_8.0/ /' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/smtube.list
apt-get update
apt-get install smtube