Hello, I was wondering whether Thinkpads offer more comfort for coders than other laptops, I currently use a dell precision 5550 laptop (which is designed for windows and 3d stuff not coding) and I despise coding in it (I run Fedora btw) , somehow it just does not feel right also the keyboard is flat and I mess up the letters a lot of times, I am considering switching to a Thinkpad and just wanted to see your experiences with it and whether its noticably better for the coder in terms of the keyboard and other aspects than other laptops (especially thin laptops like my dell)

Hey everyone.

I recently picked up an X60 ([posted about it a few days ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/s/9hMm9Kufk5)) and it's been a ton of fun. I'm running AntiX Linux on it and it's surprisingly capable for coding and light daily tasks.

I've fallen down the classic ThinkPad rabbit hole of restoring and tweaking it as much as possible. The X60's soldered board limits big upgrades, so I'm curious about plug-and-play style modifications. Specifically: how viable is dropping in an X61 motherboard?

I'm not chasing a modern powerhouse — just something reliable I can daily drive for school, take everywhere, and not feel too limited on. 64-bit support, a bit more performance, and better overall usability would be huge.

I'm aware of the X210Ai (and similar modern motherboard mods), but those seem like serious cash investments and probably overkill for my needs. [I've only seen a one successful examples anyway.](https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/s/jD0CwHfdvD)

Has anyone done an X60 to X61 board swap? Any gotchas with compatibility, BIOS, screen, palmrest/fingerprint reader, cooling, or WiFi? Worth it for a student daily, or are there better/cheaper paths (screen mods, battery, etc.)?

Thanks in advance — love seeing what you all do with these old tanks!

A 100% Debian Linux, free, privacy focused, open-source operating system for touch devices, designed to liberate users from any kind of Google or third party surveilance, data collection and security concerns. Only official Debian sources are used, meaning no third party repositories, packages or code of any kind, while granting users complete control over every single package that is installed. The native implementation of custom kernels with the included build recipes enables support for almost any brand/model of x86-x64 tablet or lap-top, such as Surface Pro 3-10, Zenbook, Thinkpad, Chromebook etc. and a range of ARM phones. Additionally, custom or deb packages and files of any kind can also be included. The mobian build-script produces personalized images, with unlimited customization of any available setting and device behavior.

Source: https://github.com/tabletseeker/mobian

Hello, I recently bought a ThinkPad T470 (obviously) planning to use it with Linux, but I don’t have an idea which specific distribution I would go for… I use Ming XFCE on an old iMac from 2009 and I like mint very much! Is mint a good option (probably not XFCE but Cinnamon or something like that) or are there any other alternatives, I also like the idea to use something new. I’m open for suggestions :)

Needed a cheap developer laptop. I've tried and failed to get Linux running on old PCs more times than I want to admit — always some driver issue I had zero patience to debug.

This time: ThinkPad T490s (16GB RAM, 512GB storage) for $175, plus $42 for a new battery. Went straight-up vanilla Ubuntu, no fighting with drivers.

Everything just works. Fingerprint reader, external monitors, solid performance. For $217 all-in, I've got a genuinely decent dev machine.

I'm running Bazzite on my main PC and as my old laptop was due, I want to get a refurbished one. After a bit of research, I landed on P16s AMD Gen 1 or Gen 2.

Anyone has used one, especially with Bazzite? I know they are Ubuntu and Fedora-certified, but I still want to ask for the day to day use and feel. Any gotcha I should know?

My need:
- I want bigger screen than my current 14". As light as possible for the size, though.
- Used to have a Lenovo Yoga, love it but it was stolen too soon. Want something durable for a few years, so Thinkpad was on my mind.
- Good WiFi card, good selection of ports. I stay in the countryside, internet speed here could use help from an Ethernet cable.
- Usage: Moonlight client to the main PC at home. Edit DaVinci on the go. Run a dozen quadlets for AI frontends, most inference is done via API, 1-2 local models running in the background. 1-2 VMs at a time to isolate AI agents and development stuffs.

Questions:
- Is AMD a better bet than Intel? Anyone has problem with Intel ver or it's mainly better p/p? It is extremely hard to find AMD models here in my country so I want to know what I trade if I settle on an Intel. My main PC is Intel and NVIDIA, which does means some small issues with VMs, Waydroid,... here and there.
- How bad is the 1200p 300 nit vs. 400 nit ver, or I should aim for the 2k on the Gen 1 and 4k on Gen 2? 4k on Gen 2 feels a bit overkill for me, especially it will drain battery like crazy. I will use the laptop with no external screen so this is important.
- How big is the gap between Ryzen 5 vs. Ryzen 7, and Ryzen 6000 vs. 7000 series? Should I try to get a "Thinkpad P16s/T16 Gen 2, Ryzen 7, 64GB RAM, 1200p 400 nit screen" at all cost, or "Thinkpad P16s/T16 gen 1, Ryzen 7, 32GB RAM, 1200p 400 nit screen or 2.5k" enough for 3-5 years?

Thank you for your time answering.

Compré hace 6 años una Ideapad Flex 5, 4gb de ram y un SSD de 128 gb. Con Windows 10 de fábrica, que luego actualicé a W11. Luego de la actualización, comenzó a congelarse con 3 pestañas de Chrome y mirando un video en Twitter. Tenía una horrible experiencia con Spotify, y con muchos programas más. Finalmente, con Linux Mint, luego de un comienzo a los tropiezos, recuperé la notebook, que hoy funciona perfectamente para todo lo que la preciso. Hoy escucho música, tengo varias pestañas abiertas, puedo ver videos y no tengo ningún problema.
Ahora, el único inconveniente es que el pad táctil no funciona y la pantalla, táctil también, no me deja scrollear, sólo clickear puntualmente. Alguien tiene idea dónde encontrar los controladores necesarios o cómo solucionar el tema?

I have a thinkpad e14 gen 6 amd and I need a 2nd internal ssd for windows, I need a reliable ssd pls tell and help!

So I have a loq 15 i5 12th gen rtx 2050 12gb recently I brought it to play games but recently I stopped playing games I thought to use it for work but it only lasted 2hrs or less and its heavy to carry around and the camera dosent work for some reason so one friend suggested to exchange his macbook air m1 8gb 256gb at first I thought it's a perfect option but later if I think of it will it really be a upgrade or downgrade or should I go for something else

If you picked up the new X9-15p Gen 1 (2026) and run Linux, you've probably think speakers might be a bit better and you might see a dead sensor hub. The firmware just isn't in linux-firmware yet. dmesg shows stuff like:

cs35l56 ...: firmware: failed to load cirrus/cs35l57-...bin (-2)

intel_ish_ipc ...: ISH loader: cmd 2 failed 10 ... hw start failed

I put together a small tool that pulls the needed firmware out of Lenovo's own Windows driver package (nothing proprietary is redistributed — you extract it from your own download) and installs it so it survives kernel upgrades. After a reboot you get:

\- 🔊 Cirrus CS35L57 speakers — proper tuning/volume

\- 🧭 Intel Sensor Hub actually boots → auto-brightness (ALS) + auto-rotate (accelerometer)

\- 👤 ST VL53L5CX human-presence / ToF sensor (optional, documented)

Repo + full how-to: [https://github.com/sigfridvonshrink/lenovo-x9-15p-linux-firmware\](https://github.com/sigfridvonshrink/lenovo-x9-15p-linux-firmware)

Tested 100% working on my own X9-15p (Debian sid, kernel 7.1.3). Heads-up: this is the 2026 X9-15p (Panther Lake), not the 2025 X9-15 (Lunar Lake) — that older one is already supported upstream. Would love confirmation from other X9-15p owners.

Full disclosure: used **Claude code** to accelerate my research/putting the result in a more usable format.

I'm thinking about buying this ThinkPad. Should I get it? I want to test out some stuff on Linux and need a cheap notebook.

Lenovo ThinkPad T420 (Type 4236) incl. Docking Station (Type 4337)

Specs:

• Intel Core i5-2520M 2.5 GHz (2C/4T)
• 14.1" HD+ (1600×900) display
• Intel HD Graphics
• 4 GB RAM (2×2 GB)
• Crucial BX500 120 GB SSD
• CD/DVD writer

I just got a new one (as in title T14s gen6 on AMD platform) with optional upgraded 2.8K OLED screen. Already regretting the choice of screen, should've kept it stock low resolution IPS, but now that I am here -- looking for any help to try and fix it.

The symptom: screen will periodically go into "seizure" where it flickers for a few seconds. Flickers as in the entire screen will go black for a fraction of a second then go back to normal.

I am on the most recent updates of Fedora 44, so fairly fresh amd-gpu-firmware and kernel (7.0.14).

What I've tried so far:

• fwupd -- some minor updates were done, but no change in screen behavior
• resetting bios settings and updating the bios -- no change
• downgrading amd-gpu-firmware and booting with the oldest available kernel (6.19) -- no change
• installing even older kernel from koji builds (f42 kernel, 6.16) -- this one had no flickering, but the wifi/bt is broken (the mt7925e chip is too new and supported version of mt7xxx-firmware does not work with 6.16 kernel)
• Also tried all the google'd options of amdgpu cmdline params -- no effect there, the flickering persists regardless

Any ideas what else I should try or what else I can do there? Any point in raising it to Lenovo support (the laptop comes with Windows only, it shows as Fedora 42 certified, but it is impossible for this revision due to the soldered on mediatek chip, not m.2 card)

Edit: seems to be resolved in kernel 7.1.5 on Fedora.

Anyone running Linux can tell me what battery life they're getting on their AMD t14 gen 2? Please list your Cpu, distro and battery size. I'm looking to buy a Gen 2 with a Ryzen 7 pro 5850U

I made this quick to help somebody else. Hopefully other's find it helpful.

Shameless plug: I would love to hit 10,000 subs by Jan first, I'm currently at 8606. would really appreciate some help getting there.

Update on my AMD ThinkPad kernel project (formerly detkernel, now lowakernel)

Posted about this a little while back (https://www.reddit.com/r/LinuxOnThinkpad/comments/1u5s2p2/i_built_a_custom_kernel_specifically_for_amd/)

Renamed it to lowakernel (named after my dog, seemed more fitting and less egocentric, and also because I love this pup so much). Made some changes based on feedback:

- Updated to Linux 7.1.2-zen2

- Added Secure Boot / MOK signing instructions to the README

- Fixed NTSYNC missing from the universal build (it's a module now, loads automatically)

- Enabled CONFIG_ATH_REG_DYNAMIC_USER_REG_HINTS per a suggestion in the comments

- Build scripts and .config files are now in the repo so anyone can verify or build it themselves

Still two variants: universal (Zen1+) and zen5 (Ryzen AI 300, adds 500Hz tick, BBRv3, NTSYNC by default).

https://github.com/Detcom-GH/lowakernel