Your favorite Linux distro on a Thinkpad? Why?

[MikalE]

I tried Linux Mint 17.2 but there were a few communications programs that i couldn't get to run in Wine or an emulator so I went back to Windows 7. I thought about a dual boot machine, but now that I have several machines I might dedicate one back to Linux.

I'd like to know if anyone has tried Zorin? It is supposed to look like Windows 7 for people like me that really don't want to change to something else.

[sdi-p]

what "communications programs" did you need?

"Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution designed especially for newcomers to Linux"
my limited experience is that it causes many problems, more than that the infamous spyware called Ubuntu.

A couple years ago I put LMDE Mate on my wifes computer with just a few shortcut icons in the tool bar.
After a few hours of learning curve and she now uses Facebook, Google search, Skype, print, scan, Hotmail, etc.
current Uptime is about 3 months. no issues.
"your mileage may vary"


(BTW: it is dual boot with Windows7 as a fall back. all her old documents and images are readily accessible, most were copied to the LMDE structure)

[MikalE]

This would be the Butel software for the ICOM IC-R20 and the Uniden BC125AT.

[sdi-p]

This would be the Butel software for the ICOM IC-R20 and the Uniden BC125AT.

yup, dual boot is best

[skinnie]

Antergos
Arch power with a easy installer and some goodies already installed.

[sdi-p]

Antergos
Arch power with a easy installer and some goodies already installed.

I am not a Arch fan, and personally I don't care for many of those "goodies".

If you like Arch have a look at this, install is much faster and cleaner:
I advise creating the partitions you want to use before you boot with the ISO.
"Achoo! is an iso and a script for a quick and easy installation of Arch Linux, with optional desktop environment and other extras. All settings are done interactively at the start, then it is completely automatic, a fast-track to the end, requiring no further intervention."
http://sourceforge.net/projects/achoo/

there is a new ISO due out at the end of this month.
This is Pure Arch, no other repos... but you can add whatever you like.

[skinnie]

Antergos
Arch power with a easy installer and some goodies already installed.

I am not a Arch fan, and personally I don't care for many of those "goodies".

If you like Arch have a look at this, install is much faster and cleaner:
I advise creating the partitions you want to use before you boot with the ISO.
"Achoo! is an iso and a script for a quick and easy installation of Arch Linux, with optional desktop environment and other extras. All settings are done interactively at the start, then it is completely automatic, a fast-track to the end, requiring no further intervention."
http://sourceforge.net/projects/achoo/

there is a new ISO due out at the end of this month.
This is Pure Arch, no other repos... but you can add whatever you like.

Thanks, I didn't knew it.
Right now I only have windows 10 because I formated my X230 and needed Windows.
But as soon as possible I will install linux again (arch based).

[sdi-p]

Thanks, I didn't knew it.
Right now I only have windows 10 because I formated my X230 and needed Windows.
But as soon as possible I will install linux again (arch based).

lots of chit chat: https://www.facebook.com/groups/915936978471838/

[Soul_Est]

Arch Linux. An light-weight and strong base to build exactly what I need on top of.

[jdk]

The intel(4) driver should support up to the Iris Pro 5200/6200/P6300 series in -current, according to its man page: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi/ ... uery=intel

I have never used it on anything newer than an HD3000 though, so I can't say how well it works on the newer chips.

On 5.7, it's a bit more limiting: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi/ ... uery=intel

inteldrm does not work with Broadwell machines on -current. So the Intel driver will give you proper resolution, but it will be unaccelerated, and you won't get KMS.

That being said, in general OpenBSD is the best UNIX-like operating system for Thinkpads.

So hardware acceleration is now working on Broadwell in -CURRENT for the past few weeks. OpenBSD is worth a shot for anybody with a newer Thinkpad who wants to learn a UNIX system.

[Temetka]

I've switched to Bunsen Labs RC1.

It's running on my Precision M4400 right now and it is running super smooth. I am really enjoying the minimalism of openbox and tint2 together. I also like that it's debian based. Mainly because that is the system that I learned most my linux skills on over the last 10 years or so. There's been some RedHat, Gentoo, SuSE, etc, in there. But mostly Debian.

So I tend to prefer debian builds. I was all set to run #!, but them coremonial decided that he was done. Thank god BL came from the ashes.

[jaspen-meyer]

I prefer OpenBSD to Linux. I run it on all my laptops and my router. It's incredibly simple, straightforward, lightweight, and secure. Everything is documented thoroughly. It works great on ThinkPads because many of the developers use them, so hardware support is generally very good.

Is there a way to control the fan for your T420? I tried BSD a few years ago and was amazed how fast programs loaded, only problem was I couldn't control the fan so I went back to Xubuntu.

Xubuntu, is Ubuntu with a simpler, unchanging, windows manager. It offers the benefits of ubuntu's large community without the hassle of an every changing interface. I run xubuntu on my T41, T43, T400, T420 and T420s. All but the T420 and T420s are completely silent. Only use their long term release (LTR) versions (current is 14.04) as the others 'expire' after about 9 months and updating the system once that happens is difficult.

To control the fan, after installation I do
1) sudo apt-get install fancontrol lm-sensors pcmanfm thinkfan acpi vim ufw gufw
2) sudo apt-get remove whoopsie
3) sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad_acpi.conf
#[add this text and save]
options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1
4) sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/options
options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1
5) sudo modprobe -r thinkpad_acpi && sudo modprobe thinkpad_acpi
6) sudo pwmconfig
7) sudo service fancontrol restart

Arch, and the arch community, was great but I couldn't get decent video quality on my T400.

[MisterB]

At the moment, I've got Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on my W510 and Mint 17.2 on my X201T. I like both. Mint is an easier adjustment from Windows. Ubuntu seems a bit slicker. I haven't used either enough to form any deep opinions. I recently worked on a laptop that was running Mint and it made a favorable impression on me because I was tweaking an OS I had no experience with whatsoever and the whole process went very smoothly so I decided to install it on one of my Thinkpads.

The X201T can boot from the SD card slot and I installed Mint on a 32gb SDHC card. I partitioned the card with a Linux system partition, a swap partition and a Fat32 data partition. The only difficulty I had was making the Fat32 partition visible in Windows. The trick was to make it the first partition and make sure the Linux installer saw it as SDA1 and the Linux Ext4 system partition as SDA2. It took me two installs to get that to work right but it is pretty nice now that it works. Windows only sees the Fat32 partition and grub is on the SD card so the main hard disk with Windows is untouched by the Linux install. The SD card feels a bit faster than a USB drive but I haven't done any benchmarking yet.

The last time I tried Linux was over 10 years ago. At the time, I found it a bit lacking for laptop use and gave up on it because I couldn't get ACPI fully working on the Compaq laptop I was using at the time. It has been a different experience with modern distros on a Thinkpad. I have also not been impressed with the latest versions of Windows and the direction Microsoft has been taking so Linux as a client OS has been much more of an attractive prospect to me these days. I am really impressed with how light both distros have been on system resources compared to Windows 7 64 bit. Mint 17.2 is using less than 5gbs of an 8gb system partition and when running with no apps loaded, under 500mb of ram. Just loading Windows 7 64 bit uses over 1gb of ram and the system partition is using around 28gb.

[Hierax_ca]

On older Thinkpads (0.5-2.0gb RAM), I really like the Debian-based Linux AntiX MX-14.4 "Symbiosis" ( http://mxrepo.com/snapshots/ ) -- it has been super-solid and flexible on my 600x, A31p, and T43p; and I've been testing AntiX 15 ( http://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/mirrors/linux/mxlinux/MX-krete/ ) and just today started testing AntiX MX-15 "Fusion" Beta 1 ( http://forum.mepiscommunity.org/viewtop ... 94&t=38882 ) -- so far both are working brilliantly on one of my A31p Thinkpads (Heck, I even got AntiX 15 Base working well on a 1998 Toshiba Tecra 780cdm with 192mb of RAM and it ran at about 48mb!)!

For newer Thinkpads (4-32gb RAM), the Ubuntu-based Linux Lite 2.6 ( https://www.linuxliteos.com/forums/rele ... -released/ ) has been all-around great!

Now that MX-15 has a 64-bit version I'll have to see how it does vs. Linux Lite 2.6 on my newer Thinkpads (FWIW, Linux Lite 2.6 32-bit does work even on my A31p, it's just not as fast as the AntiX versions) ...

There's many great distro's out there -- these are just the 2 I've found work best for me, YMMV. Both are light on resources, but heavy on flexibility/customizability, and have many useful custom tools that help even a relative Linux newbie get a fully featured OS.

[Hierax_ca]

MX-15 "Fusion" Beta 1 is now also working well on my T43p (both the 3.16 and 4.2 Linux Kernels)!

and AntiX-15V on my 600x (min-JWM loads at 35mb of RAM, default Fluxbox at 48mb)!

[twillis449]

Interesting thread. I've been using unix-based operating systems since 1983 and linux since 1998 for both professional and personal use - I only use Windoz about 1% of the time - usually for administrivia related to my employer. Although I've used thinkpads in the past (mostly from the T6x line) at the moment my personal laptop is a Dell Latitude E6420 with a core i7 CPU + an SSD for storage. Originally I installed 'standard' Ubuntu 14.04 on the computer. Boot time to the login prompt was ~ 8 sec. Then about a month ago I installed Xubuntu 14.04 on a friend's Thinkpad T60. I liked the look and feel of the XFCE GUI and decided to try Xubuntu on my latitude E6420. WOW - boot time to login prompt decreased to ~ 4 sec !! So obviously Xubuntu is what its claimed to be - much more lightweight. I stick with ubuntu because its easy to install and also is more or less required for some of my work-related projects. I didn't like the Unity desktop and the Ununtu software center approach to software package management. These just seem to be an approach to dumbing things down to the Windows level. I preferred the gnome desktop and the synaptic package manager.

[jaspen-meyer]

WOW - boot time to login prompt decreased to ~ 4 sec !! So obviously Xubuntu is what its claimed to be - much more lightweight.

If you're into tweaking boot time, disable the services you don't need. There's a handy terminal tool for this:

Code: Select all

sysv-rc-conf - SysV init runlevel configuration tool for the terminal

Removing 'splash quiet' from the boot time configuration is another fun one, it will give you the scrolling play by play as your machine boots, rather than some goofy decorative image.

For grub2 it's two steps:
file: /etc/default/grub

Code: Select all

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""

save the file. then run this command to apply the changes:

Code: Select all

update-grub

[evening_hunger]

So, hm, a word from me here. I run a x220/i7-2620M/8gb/ssd/IPS. Gave the original hdd as a present to my wife (with her x230, but that's another pair of shoes).
On my ssd, there's just one OS, and that be Debian. I run testing, so there's no particular version number, as Debian people know. I don't use any desktop environments there's a lot of talking about, I dumped login manager (i.e. I do 'startx'). Due to debian's switch to systemd and having ssd, my boot time to login prompt is something like 1 second, I'm not sure. Plus, it would be actually hard to measure: the ssd is encrypted, so the boot actually has stages: first grub, then one types the dysk decryption password, and then actual debian boots (in one second).

My WM is notion, a tiling WM that succeeds ion3 (similar to i3/awesome). It is fully keyboard driven. I'm so deep into trackpoint that I actualy disabled the touchpad completely in BIOS. It sucked anyways, as x220/x230 people know. Plus, it's a bit "jumpy" par default in X, requires some tweaking. Trackpoint also does, btw.

All hardware I need works. I don't have a fingerprint reader, so I didn't have to configure it. Accelerometer is seen by the system, but it seems thinkpad-acpi and co can only use it for HDD-salvation, and I don't care as I don't have a hdd.

The laptop is a dream come true and my daily driver (I'm a scientist, computational physics). Sometimes I take external monitor to have less neck strain, that's that.

Now, why Debian? I've been using:
-Mandrake (2002-04)
-Windows(2004-06)
-Ubuntu(2006-09)
-Debian (2009-).

Debian is Ubuntu for grown-ups, actually as most people know, Ubuntu IS Debian. Just that it has sh*tload of bloatware. But all in all, it does good work to promote Linux with people otherwise afraid of it. If anyone is seriously into the OS, administration, and has custom-taylored WM, keyboard shortcuts, and apps, sooner or later Ubuntu will start to get in the way with its 6-month cycle and imposing of software choices (hey, where is my Synaptic? WTF?). Not that Ubu cannot be made decent, but actually I ended up cleaning the garbage after every release, so I said that's that, and switched to Debian. I don't see why I should fake it, if I can make it - that is to say all Debian derivatives are waste of time if you can have the real thing. This rules out the necessity to try Ubuntu (install gnome-shell and you have it), or Mint (install Mate and you have it) etc.
I will not say a bad word about Mandrake - it's gone anyway. And for Windows, well I think XP was classy, Win 7 is not so tragic, but I want control over my OS, and no corporation that stands between it and me. Same as with hardware, actually, which is why I use a Thinkpad:)
regards

[Kilkenny]

I prefer OpenBSD to Linux. I run it on all my laptops and my router. It's incredibly simple, straightforward, lightweight, and secure. Everything is documented thoroughly. It works great on ThinkPads because many of the developers use them, so hardware support is generally very good.

Is there a way to control the fan for your T420? I tried BSD a few years ago and was amazed how fast programs loaded, only problem was I couldn't control the fan so I went back to Xubuntu.

Xubuntu, is Ubuntu with a simpler, unchanging, windows manager. It offers the benefits of ubuntu's large community without the hassle of an every changing interface. I run xubuntu on my T41, T43, T400, T420 and T420s. All but the T420 and T420s are completely silent. Only use their long term release (LTR) versions (current is 14.04) as the others 'expire' after about 9 months and updating the system once that happens is difficult.

To control the fan, after installation I do
1) sudo apt-get install fancontrol lm-sensors pcmanfm thinkfan acpi vim ufw gufw
2) sudo apt-get remove whoopsie
3) sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/thinkpad_acpi.conf
#[add this text and save]
options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1
4) sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/options
options thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1
5) sudo modprobe -r thinkpad_acpi && sudo modprobe thinkpad_acpi
6) sudo pwmconfig
7) sudo service fancontrol restart

Arch, and the arch community, was great but I couldn't get decent video quality on my T400.

I don't know of a way to control the fan specifically, however, a power management diff went in several months ago that greatly improves battery life and lowers heat/fan noise. My T420 runs silently almost all of the time. I believe that diff made its way into 5.8, but I run -current, so I can't tell you for sure.

[trashcan86]

Arch Linux with GNOME for my main system (the X220). Arch because of pacman, which is the fastest package manager in my experience, and AUR > PPA. GNOME because I miss the overview if I switch to anything else, and it also detects all my special keys like volume, brightness, etc perfectly.

[fatpolomanjr]

I liked the look and feel of the XFCE GUI and decided to try Xubuntu on my latitude E6420. WOW - boot time to login prompt decreased to ~ 4 sec !! So obviously Xubuntu is what its claimed to be - much more lightweight. I stick with ubuntu because its easy to install and also is more or less required for some of my work-related projects. I didn't like the Unity desktop and the Ubuntu software center approach to software package management. These just seem to be an approach to dumbing things down to the Windows level. I preferred the gnome desktop and the synaptic package manager.

This. Xubuntu 14.04.3 LTS for me.

I'm newer to Linux. My first install was in summer 2014; Lubuntu on an old C2D Vaio. It was for my wife's great aunt so she could stream her Thai dramas on the big screen downstairs, but it had issues with outputting to multiple displays and suspending to ram. Linux Mint had similar issues. Then I tried Linux Mint XFCE and it all worked perfectly.

Wanting to try one last easy flavor before settling down, I tested Xubuntu on my T61 and instantly fell in love with it. Everything is so stable and lightweight, but not so stripped down so as to be frustrating. I wrote my entire dissertation and many exams/quizzes/syllabi/resumes on this Thinkpad. I'm going to start my computer and data science self-studying again, but this time in Xubuntu and on the T60/61 Frankenpad I'm building in my sig.

[Pokrzept]

I liked the look and feel of the XFCE GUI and decided to try Xubuntu on my latitude E6420. WOW - boot time to login prompt decreased to ~ 4 sec !! So obviously Xubuntu is what its claimed to be - much more lightweight. I stick with ubuntu because its easy to install and also is more or less required for some of my work-related projects. I didn't like the Unity desktop and the Ubuntu software center approach to software package management. These just seem to be an approach to dumbing things down to the Windows level. I preferred the gnome desktop and the synaptic package manager.

This. Xubuntu 14.04.3 LTS for me.

I'm newer to Linux. My first install was in summer 2014; Lubuntu on an old C2D Vaio. It was for my wife's great aunt so she could stream her Thai dramas on the big screen downstairs, but it had issues with outputting to multiple displays and suspending to ram. Linux Mint had similar issues. Then I tried Linux Mint XFCE and it all worked perfectly.

Wanting to try one last easy flavor before settling down, I tested Xubuntu on my T61 and instantly fell in love with it. Everything is so stable and lightweight, but not so stripped down so as to be frustrating. I wrote my entire dissertation and many exams/quizzes/syllabi/resumes on this Thinkpad. I'm going to start my computer and data science self-studying again, but this time in Xubuntu and on the T60/61 Frankenpad I'm building in my sig.

May I suggest something ? Instead of using some crippled Debian clone - a.k.a. xBUNTU - please try to install post Crunchbang's BunsenLabs. It's pure Debian Stable ("Jessie" at this moment) with preconfigured OpenBox WM. It's rocket fast thanks to lightweight WM, ultimately stable thanks to proper Debian base system, and it provides awesome battery runtime with a few minor tweaks. All xBUNTU flavors are well known to be badly optimised and pretty unstable - every single edition uses modified Debian Testing and Unstable branch packages.

[Dekks]

All xBUNTU flavors are well known to be badly optimised and pretty unstable - every single edition uses modified Debian Testing and Unstable branch packages.

Utter cobblers, distro fanbois do linux no favours.

I've used/installed all of the Ubuntu respins bar the KDE one and never had a problem stability wise like most people. I know several ppl who started out with Ubuntu and some have stayed with it others moved on to Arch & Fedora.

It's one of the best distros for just working out of the box. Yes it's not the most upto date packagewise or the fastest but for inexperienced people starting with Linux it's fine.

[Temetka]

As of right now and for the foreseeable future, BunsenLabs is my favorite distro.

Based on pure Debian with OpenBox as the WM, it's extremely fast on my T410 with 8GB of RAM and a 250GB SSD.

It's the only OS on my laptop and is my daily driver. I do have Windows 7 in a VM should the need arise, but it hasn't yet.

I also download and tried the latest Ubuntu, which at the time of this post is 15.04. It ran nicely off my USB flash drive. Not a bad OS at all. I still greatly prefer Bunsen Labs to it though.

[EvoT61]

Im using Arch on x230 and x220 thinkpads , awesome wm ( jumped from i3) ...well and windows 7 on T61 for gaming purposes
but im using arch because it is Chalange to me and while im installing it im learning about OS and it is light and fast and very stable ...and wiki is full of info plus mediawiki

[jaspen-meyer]

This would be the Butel software for the ICOM IC-R20 and the Uniden BC125AT.

When moving to Linux from windows I upgraded the non-compatible peripheral hardware.
When buying new hardware I first check whether it'll run on Linux.

Also, look for software which supports the field, not knowing anything about the devices you posted, I searched for

ICOM IC-R20 linux
Uniden BC125AT linux
linux programs for ham radio

and found:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/bc-sctl/