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IIRC Mint 21.3 had a ~~touchpad driver~~ keyboard issue on some Thinkpads. It looked like a simple fix if you are effected tho.
Installing Mint on my Thinkpad Yoga was easier than installing Windows. Everything worked right out of the box.
Edit: keyboard not touchpad.
Thanks. You don't happen to know if there's a list of the models that have that issue and/or a page on how to fix it, do you?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo#Lenovo
This page from the Arch Wiki might be a good start
Oops, it was a keyboard issue that affected Thinkpads. It's in the release notes https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_virginia.php
Thanks!
congrats on your foray into linuxland. its possibly one of the better decisions you can make for yourself. mint is a great way to start because its reasonably well polished and the UI is familiar. issues usually arise from extremely old (and likely broken) hardware or from bleeding edge hardware that does not yet have support.
as others have said, things are likely to work pretty well right from the get-go, but, in the event of an issue, you have support! :-)
Thanks!
I have a T480 with Mint and everything worked with zero hassle. Just installed it and started working.
Awesome, just what I wanted to hear. Thank you!
You may need to update the UEFI firmware.
Thanks, that was the sort of advice I was wanting to make sure I got before I installed Mint. I assume you mean update it via Lenovo and not from a third party... or if from a third party, if you can tell me where, that would be great!
It would be from Lenovo.
Awesome, thanks!
IMHO there's no other way to know that something works that trying it by yourself. I honestly don't believe that there's some kind of specific problem with that model that will not let you use Linux on it, maybe some kind of BIOS/UEFI lock but that's usually easy to unlock.
Maybe if you really want to be sure that it works, you can try using Mint from Live Mode (Booting directly from the pendrive without installing the OS) before purchasing it.
It's less a 'won't run Linux' and more 'configure it this way or you'll have problems' worry, but it sounds like it should be okay from what others have said.
I'd say it probably works out of the box.
I usually have a look at thinkwiki and the arch wiki. Since they don't have dedicated guides for this model, it usually means it's not supported at all and no one even tried, or it's a smooth ride and there just are no issues. Since it's not a niche product, I'd say it's the latter. And it's an older model without extravagant hardware... it should work fine.
Since they don’t have dedicated guides for this model, it usually means it’s not supported at all and no one even tried, or it’s a smooth ride and there just are no issues.
I feel like if someone went through hell trying to install Linux on some obscure hardware there would be something online. I think the safe bet a majority of the time that it just hasn't been documented yet.
Great to hear, thanks!
I read the other good advice with the firmware (UEFI) update. If there's still Windows on it, maybe run Lenovo Vantage and let it update the firmware.
Windows 10 is on it. I'll do that first, thanks!
lenovo is also one of the companies that provides packaged firmware updates to the linux fwupd project, so you should be able to maintain firmware updatesfrom linux in the future.
That is great to hear.
Oh that's a nice project for them to participate in!
You'll probably fine
Go ahead and be happy
Thanks. I hope so, but since there were people who seemed to have some issues when I was searching around (someone was claiming there was a brightness issue they couldn't solve, for example), I just want to make sure there isn't anything specific for the T460- or that line in general- that I need to make sure is configured in some unusual way.