Upgrading an Old ThinkPad With Linux

Liberating a T400 from the clutches of Windows with Linux. The first of many upgrades I'll be making to this laptop.
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[@provenancemachining]

I use to do this at my university when I worked on the Helpdesk. There were a lot of students who either couldn't afford an upgraded laptop or were outright financially struggling and typing out papers between the lab machines and their smart phone. We had a public recycle bin for old technology, with most of what was thrown in there was actually perfectly functional, just a little older and consumerism demanded buying the latest shit. I refurbished epaired what I could and just gave it away for free to those I knew who needed them the most, ended up converting a lot of people to Linux that way, lol.

[@bearman_1826]

My takeaway is that somewhere at university is a pile of free laptops.

[@davidturcotte831]

​@@bearman_1826 Same. Where is this university and just how backwards do I need to wear my baseball cap to pretend I'm in my 20s?

[@bearman_1826]

@@davidturcotte831 nobody in there twenties wears their hat backwards anymore. The new thing is to rest it very lightly on top of your head, so that your forehead looks eight inches tall.

[@davidturcotte831]

@@bearman_1826 My "hello fellow students" routine will take some practice.

[@prathammehta9167]

God's work. Fr

[@trevorsmith470]

Almost like hard drives become more bearable when the OS isn't trying to load three gigabytes of telemetry data into memory on startup.

[@uvuvwevwevweossaswithglasses]

@bruh true

[@Cavi587]

True. Windows 10 has been like that for a couple of years now. pre-2020 it worked fine on my laptop with no SSD, just a HDD. But sometime in 2020 it started being awful on a HDD. I still have Win 10 on this laptop because it's the machine I use for compatibility when I can't run something on Linux and it needs more power than I can give it through a VM. Even on an old ass 1GB RAM 1 core laptop I have a light linux distro like lubuntu works better than Windows 10 on an 8GB 4 core laptop.

[@RosieSapphireMusic]

HDDs and Windows do not go together. Period. It takes like an hour for Windows to load on my spare disk. I need to get another SSD.

[@partitionhlep]

@@Cavi587 i still use windows 10 on a 1 tb hdd since 2019 and i wish i upgraded to an ssd sooner

[@JeffyPDiddy]

That doesn’t invalidate the criticism.

[@MyJoseph996]

>This is a no windows household >Records video right in front of a window Ok

[@zydiz]

unsubscribed

[@xanderplayz3446]

nOoooOoOooOoO

[@uvuvwevwevweossaswithglasses]

Lmao

[@utc_3]

totally unrelated but the first moment I saw ur pfp I noticed its from Venetian Snares (Songs About My Cats) lmao I listen to that

[@xanderplayz3446]

@@utc_3 bruh i had my brother design it wdym

[@Finkelfunk]

"But Linux is so difficult!" A friend of my mom (68 years old and a complete tech illiterate) had trouble with her dinosaur of a laptop (from what I could gather it was not newer than 2012 lol). She was cursing about how Windows 7 was running super slow and how her antivirus kept popping up, how she had trouble using it and was about to throw that thing out. She unfortunately went and got a new Win 10 laptop before I could stop her, so she had this old laptop sitting around. I asked her if I could install Linux, backed her data up and installed Arch with KDE. Made everything nice and senior friendly for her, all icons, nice and visible, blocking any chance of her fucking up by deleting important files on accident, installing everything she might need, the whole 9 yards. Then I gave it back. Not only does it run now like it is brand new, she also likes to use this laptop more than her new Win 10 machine. Haven't heard her complain once in like 6 months so far.

[@feelshowdy]

I'm surprised Arch worked so well for her. She's fine with the frequent updates?

[@raahimfareed]

@@feelshowdy You don't have to update frequently. Even though you get REALLY frequent updates, I update like once a week to once a month, there even has been a time where I updated after a couple of months.

[@Finkelfunk]

@@feelshowdy The beauty of Linux is the fact you don't have to update at all, contrary to Windows. If I don't update either packages or the distro, it's perfectly fine. I locked her out of the wheel group too so she couldn't install anything anyway. With the way she uses her computer I don't think this is majorly important to have bleeding edge updates. She looks at pictures, listens to music and does a bit of light web browsing. All of that is perfectly fine without needing to do an update every hour. It's a stable machine and if anything breaks or there really is an important update I have it fixed in like 10 minutes. I could probably make this a bash script or something along those lines but really what's the point?

[@RedSntDK]

@@Finkelfunk I booted up a Windows 10 laptop yesterday that hadn't had an update in 5 years. Windows update simply failed to retrieve anything, erroring each time.

[@Finkelfunk]

@@RedSntDK Yeah sometimes the updater simply breaks because some dependency died.

[@beaucarbatema]

I’ve had my thinkpad for 8 years now, love it. Gonna use it till she dies or I’m not poor. I’ve upgraded the RAM, and added an SSD recently to optionally boot Linux from. Still new to Linux but great to be able to bounce between windows 10 and Linux to learn

[@KlMJONG-UN]

The virgin : gets a new computer The chad : upgrades the ram on their ThinkPad and adds an SSD

[@mathisblair2798]

Learn until you can do everything with Linux that you could on Windows... Then break up with her for your new girl. ;)

[@mathisblair2798]

@@Sash2016 do you run into this issue with a virtual machine?

[@ReptilianLepton]

Many older Thinkpads can also add an mSATA SSD in the WWAN slot. There is also more-or-less one-man show (Thinkmods) working on an Expresscard to NVMe M.2 2242 adapter for Thinkpads.

[@DMSBrian24]

I recommend trying Linux on a separate computer or a virtual machine, Windows really hates dual booting and constantly breaks Linux bootloaders xd

[@shawnmiguel]

The click sound is so satisfying on these thinkpads. Thanks for the real simple walkthrough on Linux installation on a pc with windows already on it.

[@LumocolorARTnr1319]

For backups, don't forget the hidden datafolders in appdata. Many programs store the important data there.

[@christoph6055]

Couldn’t you have said that earlier? Lost my Valheim save files when I switched to Linux 2 months ago, due to them sitting in appdata/locallow… Well, sucks I guess. There is worse though, and I’m still happy i made the switch (even though it was riddled with audio issues - there’s a bug with audio interfaces in Linux right now, which will finally be fixed in the next Kernel version)

[@TheRealFlamingNinja]

Well if you copy the entire user directory those folders should be there.

[@Z3r0XoL]

for example bitcoin and dogecoin

[@0mn1P4wn4g3]

There are some other directories as well, mostly directly under C:/. Most users will know if they need files or folders in /program files for example, but like the guy above said games and other programs do sometimes pick strange locations which is why you make a list.

[@roundabout-host]

Like Minecraft. I dualbooted at first so this wasn't a problem because Linux knows how to read NTFS drives. I then removed Windows, but I had all my data copied.

[@N.S.A.]

Red Star OS is the best distro. Fast and stable.

[@MentalOutlaw]

Did you switch sides, you CCP now?

[@N.S.A.]

@@MentalOutlaw Their institutions just have less red tape and "laws" to go around. I think we could all learn something from them. That way I-we all benefit.

[@someguywithabirdface2583]

Kinda funny how nk made better mac than apple itself

[@nomore-constipation]

Isn't that a "closed-source" software too?

[@gumbo64]

@@someguywithabirdface2583 ninjakiwi

[@KayleLang]

15 years ago, I worked in a little computer shop and having fixed a ton of laptops. By far, Thinkpads were the quickest to get up and running. They were one of the few laptops that didn't need a million drivers after a fresh install. Sony and especially Fujitsu were the worst with this. Believe it or not, but Dell, at the time, was a close second.

[@tostadorafuriosa69]

Oh yeah, i had a Sony VAIO with an nvidia gpu and it didnt wanted me to use the oficial nvidia drivers for my gpu because idk.

[@dave7244]

Dell business machines are really good.

[@KayleLang]

@@dave7244 Having Dell business support was amazing. Just call in about a hardware failure and sometimes you have the replacement part delivered by the end of the day. This was before ultrabooks were the standard, so it was relatively easy to replace parts in a laptop.

[@georgemaragos2378]

I never liked Dell 2000-2010 because every rep and engineer would get the free Dell magazine and walk in demanding to get the new machine on the cover That was solved my me sweet talking receptionist to give me all the magazines and i called and cancelled all except the admin one I kept all the magazines, but not the last 6 months so when they came in a said this is the latest i have new magazine will come soon, so at that time, they would order the cover or something fairly good, but 6 months is a long time in pc development at that time and the 3k cover machine was now $1500-$2000 Even better when it is discontinued and the replacement is 20%-30% cheaper and faster - yes it happened often So last 6 years i actually like Dell, i was a HP fan boy but bottom end HP is just a very low end and spec machine - Dell and Lenovo i find can run 24/7 for 5 years easy only requiring a clean out for dust every 6 to 12 months and say a os reinstall every 3 years when running Win 7. Win 10 sort of solved that problem with the rolling updates Dell web site still has drives for desktop and laptops going back at least 10 years ( i know HP had at least 15 year old driver still available ) - but i have every machines drivers work has purchased or i have owned myself stored on server and dvd-roms

[@blehmeh9889]

Very interesting video. Linux Mint was the first Linux distro I ever willingly installed and used myself. I first used it back in 2012 on a Fujitsu Lifebook laptop my dad got for me to play Minecraft on. It wasn't a Thinkpad, but looking back, it was a business-oriented laptop with a decent CPU, a rugged build, and plentiful port selection all the same, so it's a laptop with many of the same qualities and niche as a Thinkpad. Windows 7 was what I was using at the time, and although I wasn't super critical of it, I realized over time that it ran slower and slower and eventually needed to be reinstalled, meanwhile my dualboot of Linux Mint XFCE edition was still going strong at the time, as well as running Minecraft, Counter Strike, and Team Fortress 2 without complaint. As I matured and bore witness to the dumpster fires known as Windows 8 and 10, I realized what direction Windows was going in and jumped ship entirely to Linux Mint in 2017 before I moved on to Lubuntu and more recently Debian. I owe a great deal to Linux Mint, as it's the distro that showed me the common and practical benefits of FOSS as well as the principle ones, and allowed me to make my own choice on the matter. I owe much of my programming knowledge and interest to being let loose in a transparent system that allowed me to easily install whatever programming package I wanted and interact with them however I wanted. On top of all this, Linux Mint showed me that if I put in the effort and learned about how my equipment worked and what kinds of processes go into things I otherwise take for granted, I can take something that seems old or clunky and make it shine and work like new again by working the cruft out of the process, even if tradeoffs sometimes have to be made. Whenever I used Windows, I always had to deal with parts of the black box that I couldn't access working slower and slower over time, and I always had only one recourse to beat around the bush and work around the issue from the outside running defrags and deleting temporary files only to give up as it eventually became too slow to even troubleshoot and I couldn't fix the issue, whereas on Linux, any issue could be traced back to a process that I could transparently trouble shoot and fix, with a community of people willing to help me track the problem, report it, and learn more about that process so that I'm well armed if something similar ever happens again. I'll admit I don't think Linux is for everyone, but if there is a Linux that comes close to that moniker, it's Linux Mint, because it strikes a good balance between protecting the user's freedom and allowing them to use their computer however they like with ease, all while providing an excellent coherent installation of default apps that work well together and handle many common needs right out of the box.

[@39Jhahapilie]

Tldr

[@hanslumbridge5349]

@@39Jhahapilie Linux mint = good

[@39Jhahapilie]

@@hanslumbridge5349 pop os os better Also nice pfp dude. Still waiting for his comeback

[@aquaponieee]

@@39Jhahapilie that's not objective. it depends from person to person. personally I like KDE but everyone has their own preference.

[@39Jhahapilie]

@@aquaponieee you are right

[@Marshdweller]

I love how you put in the usb stick vertically.

[@klwthe3rd]

Ah the old Thinkpads of old!! Love those vertical usb inserts! lol

[@marcotrigo]

THAT'S IT?! I didn't know it was this easy to install Linux, holy crap!! so cool

[@DMSBrian24]

basically if you can install windows, you can install linux, it's just making a bootable USB and following the installation process and it has been for many years now with most distributions, unless you wanna have a completely minimalist and custom system running Arch or Gentoo, the experience is almost no different to running Windows or Mac nowadays

[@marcotrigo]

@@DMSBrian24 yeah it's just that i'm not tech-savvy at all and i thought it was more complicated than that, like something to do console commands and stuff lol

[@bluephreakr]

At a high level, Kenny here is making Linux look easy using Linux Mint. But the conversation can get _quite_ deep. I kind of wish he showed Ventoy because you can convert any large USB storage device into a multiboot media to try almost everything popular mainstream distributions have to offer, as there is a breadth of choice for how you wish to interface with your machine,, and hoow you wish for applications to interact with the kernel. Most of your popular distributions are going to use GNU Grand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) with SystemD for system init and job control, since that's what almost everyone has adopted. Unfortunately, for how much the lot at Discord Linux profess Arch Linux is the hot rod of the Linux world, they've conformed with status quo adopting this configuration but it means if you have some experience with Ubuntu / Debian and Fedora, you'd feel right at home. Containerization formats are also all the rage these days, but for all the "Security" they give you, in exchange you lose a little bit of speed and also they don't integrate into the system nearly as well compared to software installed from repositories using shared libraries, which is also the less bloated way to go about it. So avoid Ubuntu, but Ubuntu _flavours_ aren't nearly as pushy about snaps. Regardlees what The Linux Experiment professes saying Flatpak is the future, it's still not a future I'm terribly fond of. Though, at least Fedora gives users the _choice_ to install things as Flatpak, and if you really want to do things the old-school way with shared libraries and software dependencies, then _you have the choice to do so._ Also, Fedora imo has the better GNOME Shell implementation, but recent Ubuntu shows promise with appending onto the vanilla GNOME Shell experience, without completely obliterating it in favour for something different like Pop!_OS does. If your interest leans toward Arch, you can check out both Manjaro and EndeavourOS - Manjaro for the braindead-simple setup to play with, then if you want something closer to Arch later on without using some script on the Internet to convert it, replace Manjaro with EndeavourOS. Though, if you elect to install KDE and need to install Bluetooth, at the moment EndeavourOS Apollo requires you install KDE's Bluedevil software to provide Bluetooth options. Not sure about much else, need to experiment more later. Hopefully this wall of text helps in some way.

[@gururnozoksel]

>freetard ruins everything with an unnecessary, totally uncalled for wall of text

[@somethingelse401]

I ended up using Garuda Linux for my household. It was easier to install and easier to maintain then windows. Just install and go. They come with all sorts of wizards that just make configuring it easy as pie. Asked me if I wanted to download updates right off the bat, install common applications such as only office, steam, discord, obs and the like. Even installed all my configurations for battery and performance

[@Sock-qv9wr]

The first laptop I used was an Acer aspire from 2006 (2007?). Recently had to sell my modern laptop cuz of money and revived the Acer with mint. So good! Even when it only has 2 gigs of ram. Just enough for writing and browsing.

[@hairystyles4212]

try out bodhi, mabox or antiX on that thing. I guarantee you'll be in shock from how much faster it is than mint.

[@luxraider5384]

is 8gigs of ram really that expensive?

[@StarsOfPleiades]

@@luxraider5384 I think the laptop only have maximum RAM up to 2GB

[@luxraider5384]

@@StarsOfPleiades i have a 2009 laptop and it s 8GB so idk 2 seem too few for a 2006 laptop

[@cyberp0et]

2 Gb is too little for Mint (even xfce), when it comes to Firefox and KZbin. Howeverx on Knoppix can run flawlessly all those thing with 1 Gb of RAM.

[@thedanmethenyshow.6004]

ThinkPads are awesome. Installed artix mainline install today and everything runs smoothly. They work well with BDS based operating systems too. I even bought an old t520 with an upgraded SSD and maxed out ram for a family member and put devuan chimera on it preconfigured with a desktop and they love it. I haven't used Linux mint for awhile now but that makes me think it's probably better for family members but they've been able to update the systems themselves thru the terminal I only showed them a couple of times but they don't always think about that and Linux mint comes with an update notifier. Food for thought on my end.

[@supermasterfighter]

BDS or BSD?

[@thedanmethenyshow.6004]

@@supermasterfighter spell check error. BSD

[@donjon61]

Nothing new to me, but it's delightful seeing this machine come to a better place where it belongs. Also nice authentic introduction for possible new users.

[@peternrdstrm]

Yo I just installed Arch thanks to you! Thank you man, really apreciate everything you do

[@oldaccount7463]

No gentoo?? Fake fan.

[@RoxNoAnne]

Mental Outlaw and Luke Smith both have great tutorials for learning Linux and other technologies. I've started my website thanks to Luke.

[@lightprogrammer]

Great, dude. Keep it up

[@username-du2er]

@@RoxNoAnne enjoy your site!

[@somerandomfellow8321]

Is arch beginner friendly?

[@RAZREXE]

It's like KZbin 2014 again, I'd sit all day infront of my laptop watching Linux tutorials like these.

[@awesomeferret]

I actually still use a T510 for college, no joke. Yes, there are a few things here and there that run much better on my 100 dollar Craigslist special Latitude with a 4th gen i5 (the T510 is maxed out with a first gen i7), but a maxed out ten year old ThinkPad is so usable that it really makes me wonder why so many people have newer computers. A 7 year old midrange CPU is already overkill for 95 percent of what most people do on a computer in 2022. The screen on mine is really high end for its time, so it actually looks better than any new laptop under 300 dollars. The speakers can be EQed into near-macbook quality, and the keyboard is amazing.

[@z01k1]

true

[@b3at1]

I use a T460S for school, not as old obviously but still a great laptop. Cost me $200 on ebay (would be cheaper if I got one with a bad battery) and I've been using parrot home os on it

[@awesomeferret]

@@b3at1 ha, obviously. A T40s is still probably faster than the average person's PC. In contrast, my T510 is slower than the average modern PC.

[@b3at1]

@@awesomeferret Yeah that's true. I never claimed my laptop was a low end pc. I'm just saying it's impressive how much performance you can get out of a cheap used computer just by switching to a lighter os and making minor upgrades / tweaks.

[@awesomeferret]

@@b3at1 with all due respect, when you get to hardware that powerful, the differences are negligible at best. Windows with a cheap SSD is significantly faster than just about any practical-use Linux based OS running from an HDD. Most people are okay with their Windows installation taking ten seconds to boot and another five to login and open everything. Windows 10 is REALLY lightweight compared to previous versions. There's a reason why it's actually usable with 2 gigs of RAM (I wouldn't recommend it though).

[@main-browsing5521]

I've been daily driving Linux Mint since October. Works exceptionally well. Steam works out of the box but I'm impressed is how web development in linux is sooo much easier to setup. Maybe because I primarily use python. Only issue I encountered is with pulseaudio and bluetooth 5.0 support. Hot-swapping audio devices causes audio popping and BT5.0 is not currently supported in LM 20.3 so I had to rebuild the bt driver. All of my issues we're resolved with the help of the LM forums. One thing that made the switch jarring from Windows to LM for me is the file system.

[@0mn1P4wn4g3]

It's Ubuntu with a better UI and a few really useful programs installed by default.

[@abhileshxd621]

@@0mn1P4wn4g3 In what way is Opensuse = Ubuntu with a better ui? Nah dude, Ubuntu is nowhere close to the level of polishing of Opensuse.

[@main-browsing5521]

@Watcher Yeah what I meant was the directory structure. wtf is a root and home folder? Where is drive C? How do I put my programs in my hard drive while my LM installation in my SSD. It took me a while day of tinkering and reading but it was worth it HAHAHA.

[@main-browsing5521]

@Watcher I was planning to switch to pipewire but I decided to hold it off for now. Im scared that I might break something. I know I could Timeshift but still...

[@Kalmaro4152]

checks out

[@chubbycatfish4573]

I have a 12 year old laptop that I installed Bunsenlabs Linux on years ago and it's still perfectly usable.

[@Shephardsatan]

My T430 is about as old. I got Ubuntu on it. Some downsides tho: very heavy. Very hot. Very noisy when hot. Bad screen. Bad battery. I’m blaming myself for the hot & noisy. It’s doing OK for being in active use for ages and having passed 2 people before me. I’m planning to upgrade it silly tho :D

[@muctebanesiri]

this was the start of my linux journey i think

[@snap_oversteer]

Linux really helps these old Thinkpads, still using my T420 as a main laptop, on W10 it has problems with even 1080p youtube playback, on linux with swaywm I currently have 50% CPU load playing this 1080p60 video with lot of other stuff open in background.

[@klwthe3rd]

Windows is so bloated that even watching videos bogs down any older computer.

[@tralphstreet]

That sounds like something wrong with your system. My T430 (which has almost the same hardware as a T420) was smooth both in Windows 7 and Arch Linux (it has been Windows free for a while now). That thing is darn fast, a KZbin video certainly does not take 50% of the CPU. It can do 1440p@60 with ease.

[@snap_oversteer]

@@tralphstreet I think it's due to GPU acceleration or maybe more instructions on the newer Ivy Bridge, W10 has older GPU drivers for the GPU inside Sandy Bridge CPU compared to Linux ones... and I'm talking about playing it directly in the browser, Windows really struggles with that for some reason.

[@sihamhamda47]

It will also improve your battery life as well. My Acer Aspire V5-431 has been dualbooted with Win10 & Linux Mint. While Windows 10 can completely drain my not-so-big 30Wh battery in just 1 hour 30 minutes even with lightest task possible and power saving enabled, using Linux Mint can improve it to almost 3 hours of battery life with the same tasks. A very huge improvement, I guess

[@Tricion]

I remember the first time using this at my friends house, I was amazed that he could open windows explorer without waiting a whole minute. I wanted that thing so bad

[@pakamijo]

I saw your months old video on how to switch from windows to linux, and its what got me into linux, so seeing this is such a throwback! Love your content

[@Mrhellacat]

Very pog! C2D Thinkpads are the ultimate 10 dollar PCs for programmer sock arch linux nerds. A less popular cheap option I would also look at are mid 2010s Hp probooks and Dell precisions. Can be had for under 100, Totaly upgradable and repairable bulletproof machines that put the newer soldered everything Lenovos to shame IMO. Most have socketed "m" cpus and can be upgraded ezpz too

[@7evive]

Love my 2012 Dell latitude! Upgraded with a ssd and 8go of ram.

[@totallynotbluu]

agree, not exactly a C2D but I got a T420 the other day for $80. going to upgrade its i5 to an i7 & coreboot it as my new laptop.

[@Mrhellacat]

@@7evive hell yeeea! I had a couple latitudes from that era and they are beyond epic

[@nomore-constipation]

Been using the Trackpoint (red button on keyboard) and never understood why other manufacturers don't use it as well.

[@Mrhellacat]

@@totallynotbluu noice! I think you can run a quad core QM cpu on those without melting your legs

[@fleshwound8875]

I swear Linux turns everything into something with more of a use case again. Make sure to use a lightweight Arch distro IMO ;)

[@Stranger--]

my old lenovo has Linux Mint Xfce, i don't have enough RAM to run cinnamon and multitask. works great and gets the job done

[@robertcoyle9071]

I have 8 GB of RAM and use XFCE. I get on my computer to use it and don't spend that much time looking at an empty desktop. It does what its supposed to and leaves more resources.

[@danielpicassomunoz2752]

Try LOC OS

[@Dekoyy]

Definitely using this to save an old laptop I've been hoarding thanks

[@danielpicassomunoz2752]

Use LOC OS instead

[@johncate9541]

If I came into possession of a T400, I'd have the Linux installer going on there quicker than you did. I do this all the time with old Dell Inspiron 1545s, which you can buy for practically nothing now. Usually with Mint, like you did here, but sometimes Q4OS or PCLinuxOS, which I use. A cheap SATA SSD and Linux makes C2D laptops run like new again.

[@valghyna7668]

Just did an inspiron with q4os and was quite impressed with the os. Son is using it

[@Tennyson999]

what are some use cases with these laptops?

[@6kbps]

@@Tennyson999 nothing, they are literally just old laptops that are built like tanks

[@Tennyson999]

@@6kbps ah alright. thought there was something more. i do see these laptops being extremely affordable where i am. cant think of any usecase to justify purchasing it just yet

[@6kbps]

@@Tennyson999 they can also get expensive, a lot of people collect them, its so stupid and pointless when you could buy good modern hardware for the same price of a collection of 10+ year old laptops

[@loganbogan9]

One important thing to do before switching to Linux is to update the firmware of any hardware installed in the device. I don't mean drivers, but things like RGB controllers (not really applicable to laptops) even without software, have firmware that can be updated. Unfortunately, a lot of hardware manufacterors don't have firmware updater tools for linux.

[@betanpc8210]

i did this as well with my 2gb ram computer that i gave to my cousin to use for school purposes. I used puppy and it runs smoothely

[@imixmuan9081]

Puppy is so fast it spins your head, and its about the only usable Linux with 2GB of RAM these days.

[@universallyepicnarwhal9102]

@@imixmuan9081 Void runs pretty well as well. Best ofc is gentoo

[@richmail]

@@imixmuan9081 pretty much any distro that dosnt have tons of bloat can run on 2 gb fine

[@robertpearson4394]

Dude, I hope to be like you. Your my hero and every video you post, I learn. I try it out my self and I research further. Thank you.

[@AxleNo7]

Zorin os lite is my go to for these older laptops, makes it easier when youre giving them to people as well

[@VintageGearMan]

I bought a sata Barracuda Seagate 500gig HD, and 8 gigs of ram to install on mine. Cannot wait to get her going.

[@bend7726]

So weird seeing windows 7 after so many years ! I switched to Linux and KDE a couple of years ago though and haven't looked back. It runs so much better than any windows OS I've used

[@mrjustcausegames5330]

i love th magic of the windows 7 ui

[@klwthe3rd]

This video has everything you love and need in life. (1)Old Vintage Lenovo Thinkpad (2)Any Linux distro instead of spooky Windows products (3)20 minutes of conversion to a spy-free life!!

[@vizonex4316]

Very excited to start trying out Linux in the future when I finally can buy a second laptop for it.

[@nomore-constipation]

Literally just ask anyone for a antiquated laptop. Then try learning on it. This way you don't have to worry about backing anything up. Lol

[@UhhStryfe]

Love your videos Kenny, you always come in clutch with the best content on this platform. Will follow you wherever you go!

[@totallynotbluu]

@yes cope

[@pcislocked]

@yes no

[@VintageGearMan]

Install is fast. Usually under 15 or 20 minutes. Then you are ready to rock!

[@tronche2cake]

In this house, WE ! STAN ! LINUX !

[@macanohussein580]

This is a perfect timing, as i have been looking for a tutorial on installing linux on windows laptop. This was so helpful + you vids got me to actually learn linux and so many other things. Thanks man

[@BackwardSabotage]

Just got a T470s some days ago and installed Fedora KDE on it. Works like a charm. I was surprised how Fedora is actually very user friendly, as long as you aren't afraid of the terminal to do some things.

[@ninjoun]

Have you experienced significantly better battery life? Currently getting 5 hours of fullHD youtube playback at med-high brightness(3 hours bigger battery, 2 hours smaller one).

[@BackwardSabotage]

@@ninjoun I can't really compare it with Windows because I yeetd' it as soon as I got my hands on it lol. On Fedora, I configured it to charge the battery up to 90%, it reports 66% and 48% battery health and I get around 3 to 4 hours of normal use (web browsing or emulating old games).

[@beratsalija8888]

Tried a few distros myself like ubuntu, mint, manjaro and later arch but my last one was fedora and sticked to it for like a year now and apart from some small instances i had almost no issues, went for kde as well just cause im used to the "windows" look and i like the customization options. Gotta say my experience was much better than the other distros and both manjaro and arch broke in some way, and i know fedora is not a "bleeding edge" distro but its not that far behind in terms of package versions so i expected similar problems to show up but somehow it simply worked like a charm. I even started recommending it to my friends which i never did before cause i know they are more casual and they don't enjoy spending the evening troubleshooting stuff, but fedora seems stable and reliable and is pretty up to date so you get the best of both worlds. And to be fair in regards to user friendliness i'd say most of the popular linux distros are actually good at that nowadays, as long as its not some power user task you can do everything you need with just a mouse in the gui and depending on your use case, like if you mostly use your computer for web browsing with some common tasks here and there you don't even need to open the terminal at all

[@kantraa]

p.s: you don't have to enter the bios just to change the boot order, most systems actually have a "boot menu" where you can just select the drive you wanna boot off of. in my case, i can access the boot menu by pressing F12 but it can differ from laptop to laptop the bios boot order option is mostly for permanent things, the boot menu is more for os installations where you don't wanna accidentally boot back into the install medium. with the boot menu you don't have to go into the bios again and change the boot order, you just click your drive and when you reboot it will boot off of whatever is the first option in your bios boot order settings

[@inkbomb675]

You're doing God's work. Open source will eventually win.

[@mutee333]

I installed Linux Mint after you recommended it in an earlier video. I got the XFCE edition.

[@antimattur]

right when I wanted to switch this came out. Awesome Guide

[@JeanRosa-qc3mb]

i used to have a thinkpad and i can tell you these pcs are goood like no joke.

[@kokonbini]

Recently started an upgrade process on a T61, loving how expandable it is for a laptop, especially with Middleton's BIOS installed. Makes newer laptop feel like those Vtech toy computers you'd find at a thrift store back in the 2000s

[@syntheticsandwich190]

I just got a T61 and it won’t boot from the burned in iso file I have on my flash drive. I have all the usb boot options set as priority in the boot order, and the image is a 32 bit Debian iso. I think because T61 is core 2 it is 32 but. Anyway do you have any advice on how I could get this working I’ve been scratching my head all day, even tried a cd for the iso.

[@kokonbini]

@@syntheticsandwich190 I had issues with the usb method aswell, the BIOS seems to only boot operating systems from USB and not BIOS updates. If you burn it to a CD instead you'll have better luck. If you get a bitlocker warning or error code 99 (179) then you'll have to disable the security chip option in the BIOS' security settings.

[@syntheticsandwich190]

thank you, I'll try to burn it to a cd, just haven't had to do that in years now. any suggestions for free software/tutorials I can use to do that, the only CD/DVD drive I have is in an old computer running windows 10 that doesn't belong to me, but I can download software on it. I would burn it on the native drive on the T61 but I dont have the password to boot into the windows installation on it. I also plan once I wipe it to replace the BIOS firmware with libre/core boot so that once I get 32 bit Gentoo running on this puppy it will be a fully opensource device. Its also nice that its a core 2 duo so it doesn't come with the uninstalable Intel ME.

[@syntheticsandwich190]

after doing some more research I think libreboot doesnt support T61 yet, hopefully it will in the future. which sucks because i got this T61 for free and was hoping to not have to go hunting to buy another thinkpad that isnt ancient but stil supports libreboot. In the mean time once I get linux running on it first I'll look into Middleton's BIOS so I can at least have some hardware capability advancements.

[@kokonbini]

@@syntheticsandwich190 you could use poweriso to burn to a CD. It is paid, but the trial will give you enough access to burn a CD

[@ProvAlex]

I gotta say, we probably disagree on a whole lot, but your videos are extremely practical and helpful.

[@adama7752]

I remember the older days where the wifi never worked. And you'd always need an ethernet port handy

[@foxtailedcritter]

Dunno why but ThinkPad always has a small place in my heart. Always love em.

[@failedartist2013]

My boy!

[@jacobeii]

a good alternative to Rufus is ventoy. no need to Wait for Rufus to format usb when you can just copy and paste iso into USB stick and run the USB in bios

[@lunakittyyy]

Doesn't always work on every iso though. Usually does but you'll wanna keep some spare drives around just in case

[@JIYProgrammer]

I like the timelapse music, makes time-lapses very entertaining to watch

[@NorthernChimp]

The conditionnalities listed at the beginning still pass over my noob's head, but this precious guide is undoubtably milestone.

[@arvuti-qj6xn]

What are you confused about?

[@NorthernChimp]

@@arvuti-qj6xn Probably nothing, I just need to learn what all these weirdly named things are. Thank you😃

[@Dylyinyang]

I appreciate timing the music with the installation's end

[@Konkov]

Saw this in the community post

[@elegantpower]

Just installed mint on my thinkpad x220 just now, definitely my favorite distro so far :)

[@herrvorragend5443]

What a beautiful piece of engineering! It's so simple to breathe new life into such seemingly obsolete hardware. I own a pretty much maxed out 10 year old Thinkpad W530 (Quadcore, 16GB RAM, 4TB Samsung SSD, Full-HD Screen) and it's running Linux (Devuan) like a charm. Sadly, the newer Thinkpads can't even be compared to the older models prior to 2014, not just in build quality. I would even argue they have worse performance overall since the cooling solution is so bad they constantly thermal throttle and are as loud as a jet engine when even a little stressed... (Have to deal with those at my workplace running Windows 10). Not to mention soldered RAM, difficult to tear down and no easliy removable battery anymore. Hopefully the new Framework Laptops can become the spiritual succesor of the classic Thinkpad series, so far very promising from what I have seen, only time will tell.

[@Saphintosh]

That's fricking mind-blowing. I just bought a thinkpad laptop on backmarket to use it specifically use some linux distros without damaging my other machines and you just pop out this video about installing some linux on thinkpads

[@mangotree5027]

>installs linux >downloads chrome "fucking dies"

[@HellsJerome87]

Just installed Ubuntu on my gf's 2017 ChromeBox that had stopped updating. I also used Rufus to wipe an old USD stick with the latest Ubuntu LTS ISO file and I pretty much winged it at the partition scheme part. That machine was very stubborn but I finally cracked it and with some help from the Archlinux Wiki I sudo'ed my way to setup her very own UbuntuBox. In the end I saved perfectly fine hardware from planned obsolescence and gave it a few more years hopefully. Feels good man.

[@RayOfSunlight984]

6:00: Windows 7: I guess this is it... Goodbye...

[@TheREALJosephTurner]

I will forever hear that music in my head every time I am waiting on an OS to install...

[@VidCirman]

Watching from the same laptop right now! Running Artix

[@absmustang]

Congrats, that's a fine classic laptop

[@lukassvardkvist9161]

I have a t450 with a i5 5300u, 16gb ram, 1tb 860evo with new interlal + external 24wh battery, + an extra 48wh battery external for travel. It's glorious. Intel wifi that supports 5ghz, it's just modern enough and covers my use case perfectly. And middle of the road scren, 1600x900 IIRC, fits me perfectly.

[@feelshowdy]

As someone who's distrohopped for years but still returns to Linux Mint every time because it just feels like "home" to me, this video makes me happy.

[@ludwigvonrothenberg9145]

I bought this exact model of thinkpad like 5 years ago. She’s been running Ubuntu since the moment I bought her.

[@ludwigvonrothenberg9145]

Idk why I said „her“ like an old ship captain. Im just drunk as shit and im feeling sentimental. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been this fucked before. I may have a problem.

[@richmail]

@@ludwigvonrothenberg9145 have you tried bedrock linux? if you are into linux, bedrock linux is rlly fun

[@benderman1157]

just wanted to say thank you, followed this guide and reset an old thinkpad for my dad to use for his music library and to watch good ole star trek with me on. I hope to convert all my family to linux users.

[@probablyjohn5589]

I'm going to make use of this when I upgrade my new laptop from Windows 10/11 to Manjaro or Arch

[@mathisblair2798]

:D

[@connyslayer4661]

Thats pretty great and awesome. Laptops are great to upgrade to linux from windows. Manjaro and other Arch based systems are great to use or migrate to. I use windows and linux on desktop however on laptop , Manjaro is awesome.

[@maurice1780]

Loving the frequency of upload lately, thanks for the content

[@AwkwardSegway95]

My first time using Linux was Linux Mint on a ThinkPad (back in 2016).

[@Illustra-mumu]

Thank you so much. I just upgraded from Making Waves, so the concepts are familiar, but tNice tutorials is a whole new world! Look forward to

[@hunterrules0_o]

"this is a no-windows household" had me dying lmao

[@LazZanZaz]

5:19 is my favourite part of this video, sea shanty 2 is an iconic vibe and it's just so damn perfect!

[@R4dm1n]

Old ThinkPads are really capable. I have a T430 that I shoved an SSD in along with Linux and it runs flawlessly. Now all I need to do is get an i7-3840QM and 16 GB of RAM and I'll be set.

[@unknown_codec_404]

How you're doing?

[@acronym.4328]

How's that T430 holding up?

[@R4dm1n]

Dropped it once, screen was glitchy. Popped the bezel back in and restarted the PC. Still works. Even the screen was fine.

[@acronym.4328]

@@R4dm1n *Literal chad of a Thinkpad*

[@TurntableTV]

That's one beautiful and well preserved machine.

[@HikingFeral]

I have decided to spend £80ish on a few years old ThinkPad to do just this, I wanted a completely separate Linux only machine to learn with and this seems like a great way to achieve it :) - Thanks for the guide.

[@daeraticspecializt9635]

i watched this logged in just to tell you that i love your videos and ur one of my favorite youtubers. keep up the good work kenny

[@grobb1996]

Ctrl + Alt + Del if you're still in the boot up to send it back to the beginning of you miss the window You may have to disable secure boot if using a UEFI based system (and potentially need to enable legacy mode depending on the partition table you used) There may be other options you need to enable/disable depending on the manufacturer (Intel BIOS tends to be absolute garbage) You may have to select a different partition on the USB (I have yet to figure out what causes this to be necessary, nor spent the time to look it up)

[@xynyde0]

@Fashinqu A. If you're not going to use any discrete video cards, then you can leave secure boot on. Nvidia cards cause some booting issues so its recommended to turn it off.

[@iroquoispliskin1972]

Perfect timing. I've been looking on eBay for a T440P at the right price to come along with a minimal desktop Gentoo install in mind for it recently.

[@bryanc4054]

I got a pair of T410s with broken screens and was debating whether it’d be even worth it to replace or just go with a newer model. This pretty much sealed the deal to stick with the T410 and fix it, thank you. It should be good enough for the programs I need it for while on the go.

[@deliapascal3550]

If you can get hold of the screen for a fair price I definitely encourage you to give them a second life. I got my T410 (i5, 6gb ram with Nvidia graphics, and a 500gb ssd w W8.1) second hand 3 years ago and it still serves me just as well today. Its still very competent in internet browsing and office suite (it can even do some light gaming). I carried my t410 around for school work and while its a tanky beast of a laptop the 9cell battery really adds to the weight, I recommend sticking or maybe getting hold of the 6cell one.

[@bryanc4054]

@@deliapascal3550 thanks. I found the display replacement (going to attempt to use the higher res version) for $49 on aliexpress, so I’ll order it later today. I have a couple of RAM sticks lying around and one of the 8GB pairs is bound to work on it, right now I’m just searching for reasonably priced SSDs to toss in. Really wish I could use the ultra bay for a battery, but sadly it does not support it.

[@matthiasendler7268]

ThinkPads and Linux are a match made in heaven. Personally I run CentOS 7 and Rocky Linux on my ThinkPads... I ran different flavors of Linux since 1993. Slackware, DLD Linux, Debian, SuSE Linux, CentOS, and now Rocky Linux. I also use FreeBSD based system (OPNSense and TrueNAS) and also tried OpenBSD a few years back....

[@radityaharya]

after watching a few of ur vids, i mustered my courage and installed my first ever linux based os a few weeks ago on an old laptop and it was rough. i broke the dns resolver while installing pihole and apparently broke everything when i updated python. but overall it was fun 😅

[@mr.sexyman123]

What distro did you go with?

[@samuelhoward]

Watched for the algorithm. Nice, clean video for future FOSS users. Pro tip: if you tinker enough, you'll get really good at reinstalling Linux.

[@XaetaCore]

When it comes to old hardware or stuff with nvidia, i recommend using something like OpenSUSE, Why? because it has build in BTRFS support and that is their main filesystem, so if an update breaks something you can easily go back one automated snapshot to a state where it is functional

[@Cha0sNicr0]

All hail the Yast-manager.

[@robertcoyle9071]

I can downgrade to the last 3 versions of everything. I keep 3 in cache. I've only had to do that once with Skype not playing well with alsa years ago.

[@strangersound]

I would suggest using the Linux Mint Mate version. Less overhead. And if you're going to use a Linux distro, do yourself a favor and learn to use the command line. The software managers can be finicky and don't always work right, which can be totally confusing for a new user. Plus, just typing a couple of simple commands is a lot faster than dealing with a convoluted GUI. And most distro install scripts make it pretty easy to just set up a dual boot machine, which will install a distro along side Windows, so when you start the machine you can choose which OS to boot into. For new to Linux users, this is a good option. One great thing about Linux (especially Debian variants) is the wealth of information for people to learn how to do stuff. No matter what you want to do, there's a stack of article/videos that will walk you through every step. It's really a lot easier than you think. And if you're an older person that used DOS back in the day, than Linux really is for you. If you knew how to use DOS, you could be a Linux power user in no time at all. :)

[@jacobturnquist877]

The final step is to remove the screen bezel and unplug the camera module from the top of the screen it is independent of the think light so don't worry you won't lose it. Then snap the camera module in half and toss it. Then you have achieved true freedom. 🙏🤙 Also to add I did this on my t420 as well process is the exact same. Oh and I used a sharpie to color in the lens on the bezel to give the illusion of a camera.

[@abhileshxd621]

Nice but I prefer to just put a piece of tape on the camera so that I can sell the laptop down the road. Not talking about an old Thinkpad though.

[@dayvie9517]

Yeah, you can just cover that :')

[@spaghettiking653]

Why get rid of the camera? If you aren't installing spyware, surely there's nothing wrong with having the camera still there?

[@thunderdrumandbass]

+1 for OSRS music!

[@愛]

its so weird seeing kenny download an exe using http through Google Chrome on Windows 7

[@leapbtw]

i might just be addicted to your channel at this point

[@del46_60]

I actually did something similar yesterday. I tried Fedora 36, error on installation. Tried Fedora 35, but it was running slowly on my 4GB of RAM. Tried Linux Mint, and it was perfectly smooth with a nice GUI front end for the package manager and didn't break whenever I tried to update programs.

[@VintageGearMan]

My LENOVO T400 with MX 23.2 Libretto and it turned out great! It can get a little boggy at times if to many Brave browser pages are opened,

[@bobbyperson1]

"No windows household..." Care to tell us what's behind the ThinkPad?

[@ReptilianLepton]

A silicate-obstructed aperture.

[@Saredar1422]

Glass wall

[@joshallen128]

Window blinds so no windows are showing

[@briianhebert]

Thanks for the video! I wonder if we could talk the Linux Mint devs into adding that music during install haha

[@youssefthe1]

thumbnail got me here

[@newcountofdroid]

yeah me too homer xD

[@husseinalsaleh]

I'm actually using as my main machine an old dell with Linux mint and its quite handy I was forced to this after my laptop got stolen and can't afford to buy a new one any time soon It's been six months now and I got jt customized and fell in love with the capability I'm planning to use Linux always once I buy a new laptop

[@Soadaa5656]

I Just started The Odin Project last week and spent all day figuring out how to setup dual boot with windows/linux, but I'm really enjoying Ubuntu. I remember Some Ordinary Gamer talk about how Linux gaming is on the rise (Limited by what games are made for the OS IIRC?), but I'm currently keeping the linux side my productive side and not installing steam there.

[@technomatic6285]

Linux gaming is on the rise and it is not limited by the games made for it, we are way past the phase when game compatibility used to be an issue. Wine has been in development since almost 20 years now, it is a compatibility layer that "emulates" (Wine is NOT an Emulator) Windows. Basically, Wine allows you to run Windows files on Linux. In recent years, Valve™, the company behind Steam has decided to fork Wine and integrate dxvk in it to boost Linux gaming even further than it has ever been. They call it Proton. dxvk is basically a translators which translates DirectX system calls to Vulkan system calls. Vulkan is an open source alternative to DirectX. (DirectX was created by Microsoft) As it stands now, roughly 80% of Steam's library is capable of running on Linux. Most games that DO NOT WORK are games with kernel level Anti-Cheat baked into it. These games need support from the developers before they can run on Linux. Apex Legends and Fall Guys are two examples I can think of whose developers were kind enough to allow their game on the Linux platform. However, games like Destiny 2 have firmly stated they won't support Linux and BAN anyone who tries to play it through Proton.

[@nuggert]

Most of the games you wont be able to play on linux that are made for windows are Easy Anti Cheat monitored games. Even some of those games can be fixed by downloading the EAC .so file that they released and putting it in the correct steam directory.

[@Benz999]

Just switched to linux mint, thanks for this!