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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • ThinkPad T430

    pros:

    • old
    • extremely cheap
    • usable performance, can be upgraded to average performance
    • libreboot compatible
    • very compatible with Linux
    • great keyboard (if you mod it with a t420 keyboard)
    • trackpoint (controversial)
    • hot swappable batteries
    • repairable
    • display can be upgraded to IPS if you manage to find a converter board

    cons:

    • old
    • bad battery life (if you keep the stock one)
    • TN panel
    • not blazing fast (more than enough for the tasks you mentioned though)










    1. Try out different linux distros / desktop environments in virtual machines and find out which ones you like the most. I spent about a month doing this, until I found kde neon.

    2. Know that you are going to break stuff, and don’t be afraid of it. Even if you are a tech savy Windows user (as i was), Linux will be a new thing for you and you’ll not know the nuances. I broke my installs a bunch of times because of things like nvidia drivers, but I was running Linux in virtual machines so I just started over from scratch. Breaking things makes you learn the fastest imo, so don’t be scared of it.

    3. Have fun. Linux is going to give you some frustrations, so it’s important that you are using Linux because you want to so you can keep moving forward.