Hi everyone.
Can anyone guide me into choosing a Linux distro for this laptop (or laptops in general)?
I want to get it for my dad as a general browsing machine that can maybe also play some very old games. (think 2010 era)
How do I pick a distro? I tried checking the drivers page but it seems, at least from this page, that there are almost no drivers available on linux for this machine.
The same seems to be the case for many other laptops I looked at...I also have a ThinkBook 16 G7 IML as a work machine that I could not find proper drivers for (keyboard, camera, graphics card - I get artifacting very often)
Help? How do I research this?
EDIT: Thanks for the overwhelming support! What I took away is:
- Most drivers are packaged in the kernel in Linux so no dedicated drivers are needed most of the time
- Proprietary drivers are an issue (camera on the 16 G7 IML, Nvidia drivers)
- The 940MX may not have Linux support, I'll check
- It's a good laptop overall
- Consider Mint, Tuxedo OS, Zorin (for mac users), Ubuntu
- Consider A485 (AMD version of T480 with Vega 8), T470 (non-P - no nvidia driver issues), T480 (faster low power CPU than T470 high power CPU)
- Resources: DistroWatch.com DistroChooser Linux Hardware
Yes I've considered desktops and would build one in a heartbeat if it would be useful for my dad, but he 100% needs the portability. Thanks for the heads up.
This thread proves 100% that the linux community really is friendly as hell. I don't know where people get the impression that noobs are treated badly.
I just checked compatibility between Mint and the 940MX and it seems good. Here are some links. The ones with "computer" in the link are specifically T470 or T470P models. The site is very slow for some reason but it will load eventually. If you get a gateway timeout it's likely to succeed if you retry.
- https://linux-hardware.org/?view=search&vendor=Nvidia&name=940MX&typeid=graphics+card#list
- https://linux-hardware.org/?id=pci%3A10de-134d-17aa-2246
- https://linux-hardware.org/?computer=f4e6936f5da7
- https://linux-hardware.org/?id=pci%3A10de-134d-17aa-38e2
- https://linux-hardware.org/?id=pci%3A10de-134d-17aa-39c8
- https://linux-hardware.org/?id=pci%3A10de-134d-17aa-39ce
- https://linux-hardware.org/?id=pci%3A10de-134d-17aa-39f1
- https://linux-hardware.org/?id=pci%3A10de-134d-17aa-39f4
- https://linux-hardware.org/?computer=768a61add139
- https://linux-hardware.org/?computer=99a6c68e065d
- https://linux-hardware.org/?computer=846677ea455f
- https://linux-hardware.org/?computer=7598b7212af5
Yea I'm an Ubuntu user myself and had no issues with it, really. I'm definitely considering that one and will try it as well if Mint fails.
I definitely won't put Arch on his PC haha. Even I'm not knowledgeable enough for that one.
If I do try Ubuntu, is there a reason I should go with 22.04 instead of 24? I'm on 22.04 at work right now.
I'd say the only reason to go for 22.04 is that you already run it and do not want to upgrade to 24.04.
So, in a new installation 22.04 makes no sense. 24.04 is the choice if you want an LTS version. If not, then you can just go for 25.10.
thanks!