Excellent OS choice - great for noobs and veterans alike.
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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I have 2 ThinkPads - a Yoga 370 and a Yoga X13, both running different Linux flavours and they're honestly the best laptops I've ever had. Very capable, sturdy, great keyboards, working touchscreens, pens and fingerprint scanners, passwordless encryption with TPM+LUKS.
The 370 struggles a bit with heavy browser usage sometimes but otherwise they're both rock solid
I miss my Yoga 730. Best laptop I've ever had. The 2-in-1 and pen support carried me through uni. All my lecture notes could be typed and diagramed as needed in the moment.
Thinkpads are great. But how did you get the fingerprint scanner to work? Mine does not work.
I followed this guide, worked right out of the box:
https://github.com/SeniorMatt/How-to-enable-fingerprint-in-Linux-Mint-for-T480
I got 5 T420s (nice) from my boss last year. Now they’re all running Linux and loaded up with late 90s, early 2000s games to play over LAN
I really want to know why we are staring at basically the same screen from decades ago. Why isn’t GRUB menu a fancy little thing by now?
When I was a kiddo, dabbling in duel boot, I remember this screen. It was slightly more basic, but pretty much the same. I always figured it would eventually get upgraded to something more… I don’t know, fun to look at? Something minimal, but also customizable… background image, background music, maybe a menu for doing customizations right there… like what options are to be shown.
No… it’s pretty much the same. Why?
Edit: I realize that I am stupid. It’s because GRUB needs to survive when everything else is broken. GRUB is the first and last standing soldier. Its simplicity is a feature enabling that capacity. But also, you can customize GRUB if you want… so I am just dumb. Have a good day.
yeah you already said it in your edit, but just to respond anyways:
grub's simplicity is a feature. it does one thing and does it well.
There is no software that does theming for GRUB that doesn't break it badly and was stopped mid development and GRUB 2.0 takes deep knowledge of how it works to theme it without breaking it.
Hell the little bit of theming they added to Ventoy has them slowing GRUB updates to make sure that it is tested and tested again before they roll it out and break everyone's install without knowing it.
I plan on doing it but I really don't have time for it right now or any time in the future.
Why isn’t GRUB menu a fancy little thing by now?
Because you can't improve on perfection
You can absolutely rice your GRUB install. I haven't used it in a hot minute, but I definitely had ones in the past that were themed.
I dunno, I run Debian and my GRUB looks like this:
Because there is very little overlap between “programmers who design the systems to be as efficient and reliable as possible” and “UX designers who consider elegance and ease of use, even if it means the install is a few extra MB in size”.
Tons of FOSS UIs tend to fall into one of three categories:
- CLI. Maybe a third-party GUI exists.
- Laughably horrendous monstrosities that make early 90’s websites look good
- A direct ripoff of a paid software that has actual UX designers.
It’s because the people designing the FOSS aren’t UX designers, so they either make their best guess at it (the laughably horrendous choice) or they just copy whatever paid software they’re trying to replace.
It’s because GRUB needs to survive when everything else is broken. GRUB is the first and last standing soldier.
And there you are, right on the raggedty edge. Well done, Sir or Madam.
All the best! My SO runs a T480s, the elegant one, for years now, switched to Debian after U went super-slow on her.
I went all fancy-schmancy with a Yoga x390, debian too.
Both cheap secondhand, both issue-free (and both with touchscreen!). Whish the official batteries where still available tho.
480s has a touchscreen? I need to check mine...
This one does. I think certain IPS models got the feature. Tbh, not really much of a touchscreen guy for laptops but I wont say no
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Wow I literally just installed mint cinnamon on a T590 like an hour ago. Small world!
Great minds think alike haha. Good for you brother. Hope it works well for you.
I love how even modern Linux distros run so damn well on what's considered today 'outdated' hardware.
I love Linux Mint btw! I think you did a great choice! Even though it's known as the beginner friendly distro, I think it's just a damn great distro for pretty much anyone, experienced or newbies. Fantastic choice!
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Congrats on the Thinkpad. I look forward to your next post on /c/unixsocks.
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