Here’s the PC:
With a machine like that, you’re firmly in the mainstream of linux. Almost any distro will run well on it, so selection is a matter of taste.
Debian is a solid, conservative option, though they have a reputation of lagging behind other distros in terms of software versions. I do like arch, their wiki is first rate. It has the reputation of being finicky but I’ve always found it pretty straightforward. Great for the extensive docs and not trying to insulate you from the system.
I personally would avoid ubuntu these days, they seem to be leaning into the Ubuntu Way for things like installing software. A bit lock-in ish for me.
FWIW I’m running nixos on my thinkpads, works great. Nixos is not to be undertaken lightly, there’s a lot to learn and docs are meh. Stability is second to none, and the declarative configuration management makes it great for easing into devops.
I run Debian. It’s perfect
Unrelated but relevant advice: Is this a refurbished laptop?
- Make sure to run Lenovo Diagnostics software; you can get it from official Lenovo website and check for any hardware issues during the stress testing.
- Check if BIOS password is removed.
- Test for memory RAM errors: disable secure boot in BIOS, then run Memtest86 test via a bootable USB to check for any memory errors.
I’ve been using Debian. I’ve never understood the attraction of Ubuntu, which is basically a corporate relabel of Debian. If I were really cool, I’d presumably go for Nix or Guix. Maybe someday. I switched from Fedora to Debian some years ago over some drama whose details I’ve forgotten, and have been happy with the move. Arch tries to be more up to date with everything and I guess that’s good for some users, but I like stuff that is stable, with an upgrade every few years.
Debian 13 with KDE Plasma has been super nice. Really nice looking straight out the box, zero setup required.
Feel like Ubuntu and Mint have less and less reason to exist with how great Debian is these days.
There’s no real difference between different brands of laptops that matters to distributions. In most cases there’s not even a difference between desktops and laptops that matters to distribution choice.
ThinkPads have always been well supported by Linux and older laptops are even better for support as there’s no issue of hardware newer than drivers.
Mint rather than Ubuntu surely, if you want a debian base. If you prefer something Fedora-based, I hear good things about Bazzite
The nice thing about Mint is that there’s no hardware requirements for thigh-highs. You can just wear regular socks.
What is the usecase?
If this is a primary driver for things like work or your primary personal email/web/productivity machine, IMO you want Fedora for stability
If this will be for games, there are good dedicated distros (consider Batocera if you love retro!)
If you’re using this laptop to do work, then Mint or Zorin can’t be beat. They have user-friendly interfaces, they have stable packages meaning updates are unlikely to break your OS, and you can still install new software through Flatpak and Snap.
Once installed, install Librewolf for web browsing, VLC for video playback, OnlyOffice for MS Office files, and any other software you need from the built-in software store. If you choose Mint then you need to turn on unverified Flatpaks in the software store for everything to appear.
Also, with the original 1 x 4 GB of RAM and mechanical hard drive, this laptop will be slow with a modern OS, so I recommend upgrading it to 8 GB RAM (2 x 4 GB is recommended for dual channel speed) and an SSD beforehand.
Man, Arch is so easy to install these days with
archinstall, there’s no reason not to give Arch a shot first!(I use Arch btw)
I use CachyOS on my X220 with btrfs and lzo as disk compression (lzo is very good on old cpus and makes the SSD go really fast). But I think any distro could be good on that hardware.
As a side note, I would really like an x86_64-v2 distro, people jumped from no additional instructions to v3 in no time, but these thinkpads and older pcs could really shine with that kind of optimization.
+1 for CachyOS, I’ve been running it for a few months now and it’s my new favourite. I’ve run Mint, Ubuntu, and Bazzite but none of them felt right to me. Cachy has been great since day one. I mostly use it for gaming but also like to do non-gaming tasks too and it handles it all very well and very quick and smooth.
Nice Thinkpad! I recently installed Linux Mint Debian Edition on one of the more recent Thinkpads. But the other suggestions here are fine as well. Mind an older Laptop with a spinning harddisk inside might not be as snappy as a people expect these days.
Debian with XFCE. It’s very stable with very little bloat compared to Ubuntu.
KDE might not run horribly, but XFCE was always snappy for me when I ran it on a similarly-aged, sinmilar performance Fujitsu Lifebook.
I got a very recent Thinkpad and it apparently has official support for Ubuntu and Fedora. I went with Fedora KDE.
I reccomend fedora, great compromise between stability and modern features
TempleOS is the only correct answer.
What about Hanna Montana Linux?
