The ThinkPad cult
Welp, it has finally happened. Dear friends, fellow nerds and geeks, and fellow humans - I have joined a cult. It's the Everest, the Rolls-Royce, the cultiest of cults, the one and only ThinkPad cult.
How it started
As some of you might know, Microsoft is discontinuing support for Windows 10 in October 2025. I've been a lifelong Windows user (starting with Windows 3.11 - I am that old) for my personal entertainment desktop PC, while fully embracing MacOS for work in recent years. Like many other Windows users, I feel that it has been slowly degrading.
It's an old trope by now, but I tend to agree that Windows 7 was probably the pinnacle. To be fair, I think that later versions of Windows 10 are perfectly fine, if only Microsoft had continued to update it perpetually as they once promised. (Well, if you read the discussion I just linked, it appears that the statement was just an unofficial "opinion" from one of their devs, so 🤷 I guess.)
Either way, I think I'm done with Windows. Between the persistent enshittification culminating in Windows 11 and the uncompromising requirement for TPM-compatible hardware, I just don't see the need for Microsoft's operating system anymore, especially when it's not free like MacOS. (Ok ok, I know MacOS is not really free-free but, whatever, you get what I mean.)
Throw on top of this the bloatware, adware, gotta-have-a-MS-account-ware, upselling, eroding privacy, and just overall bloat. Enough is enough. On second thought, perhaps I should be grateful to Microsoft for drawing this line in the sand and forcing my hand to abandon this dying ship.
So I began to gear up (mentally at first because it doesn't take much effort) for the possibility of making a complete switch to Linux in 2025.
Truth be told, I wanted to do this in 2024, but me lazy.
There's nothing wrong with my aging hardware
I firmly believe that Microsoft's aggressive push towards new hardware and discontinuing support for Windows 10 is a vile move. Don't waste your time trying to convince me otherwise.
I would be ok with requiring TPM for Windows 11 as long as Microsoft committed to supporting Windows 10 for older machines indefinitely. But we all know there's no money in that. (Except for goodwill which is worth more than money, but what do I know I've only been in the industry for 30 years or so.)
My desktop PC has a 9th gen i5 with (only) 16 GB RAM and a 1080 Ti GPU. Yet it can run any game from my sizable Steam/Epic/GoG libraries. That includes modern, graphics-intensive games like Witchfire or Path of Exile 2.
Granted, it could use a few minor upgrades, but why would I spend $muchodinero for brand new hardware, just so I can run Windows 11? It's not that I can't afford it, it's just that I don't wanna. Out of spite. Screw you, Microsoft.
Linux it is, then. In recent years, Linux has finally become a first-class alternative to the Windows PC for playing games, thanks to Steam Deck, SteamOS, and Proton.
The ThinkPad rabbit hole
I've used Linux briefly in the past, back in the days when Red Hat hadn't yet gone enterprise, and more recently PopOS on an old Dell Precision 4700 workstation that I bought a few years ago for $50 (a true brick shithouse of a workhorse, if there ever was one).
But I haven't used Linux for daily tasks yet, so I can't predict how it'll hold up. That said, I don't use a lot of pretentious software on my desktop PC, apart from games. I don't edit images, video, audio, or do any kind of meaningful creative work. This machine is strictly for entertainment, and by all accounts Linux can handle it all nowadays.
In the process of researching Linux, I watched a lot of YouTube videos on various distros, installing Linux on ancient or underpowered hardware, and putting it on old IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad laptops. The more I watched, the more obsessed I became with the ThinkPad.
You see, I've always had a soft spot for the venerable IBM ThinkPad. "An elegant tool from a more civilized age", as Obi-Wan Kenobi would say. After buying the brand in 2005, Lenovo thankfully didn't interfere (much) with the core design, at least not for a while. As a result, the ThinkPad continued to dominate the business laptop concept for a very long time, arguably until present times.
A MacBook may be sleek and sexy, but to this geek a ThinkPad appears handsomely rugged and supremely functional. Think Padme's Naboo starship vs Vader's TIE fighter. (Ok, nerds, calm down.)
In a compact form-factor, nothing beats the ThinkPad keyboard or the convenience and precision of a trackpoint. I know because I used a ThinkPad at work for a couple of years. It was an X1 Carbon gen 6, and I literally gasped the first time I picked it up. I couldn't believe that so much power can be concentrated in such a featherweight carbon-reinforced sliver. Too bad it ran Windows.
Some say that modern ThinkPads have lost their way. After digging deeper into the subculture, I tend to agree on certain levels.
Gone is the chunky mechanical keyboard, replaced by the sleeker chicklet-style one (yet a step above the excellent current MacBook keyboard).
Gone is the square replaceable power connector, replaced by soldered-on USB-C.
Gone is the external battery.
Gone is the socketed CPU, while certain internals are not as easily replaced as in the past.
Gone is the absolute replaceability-of-literally-everything.
In return, we get faster performance, light weight, thin profiles, much better screens. I wish they still made a chunky model with modern parts that you could replace down to the tiniest detail. But something-something-progress and I guess Framework exists.
Modern ThinkPads retain some of the traits that make then iconic: the excellent keyboard, the mil-spec ruggedness, the aesthetics, above average expandability (you can still upgrade RAM, SSD, keyboard, trackpad, etc on many models), above average serviceability. Business laptops have always been head-and-shoulders above consumer-grade craptops, translating to a much longer lifespan, and the ThinkPad bears testament to this.
For me, the irresistible appeal lies in the idea that a 10+ year old laptop can be refurbished to run almost as well as brand new hardware, for 1/10 the cost. Running Linux, of course.
I've watched countless videos of ThinkPad restorations. I can't get enough.
The distros
Allow me a short intermission.
I think I've narrowed down my preferred Linux distros to a handful.
Now, there are gaming-focused distros like Bazzite but I don't want to make my desktop PC feel like a console, so Mint is going to be my first choice based on everything I've researched so far.
It's not written in stone, though, so I'm open to trying out other distros if Mint doesn't cut it.
The plan (Linuxing it up)
First, I'm going to do a fresh Mint install on the ol' Dell Precision 4700. I'll play around with it for a while, see how it runs the programs I need, including some light gaming. That machine has an i7 CPU and an nVidia Quadro GPU so it can certainly run less pretentious games.
If I'm satisfied, next I'll buy a 1-2 TB M.2 NVMe SSD, plug it into the spare slot in the desktop motherboard, and put Mint on it. I'll keep Windows 10 on the existing M.2 slot as a backup.
If my peripherals work and I can run my games without issues, I'll upgrade the RAM to 32 GB because it's cheap (I simply haven't felt the need before), and finally upgrade the GPU to the latest AMD 9070 XT.
Linux ascension complete.
Rescuing e-trash
I remembered that I have some neglected old computers lying around. There's an old desktop (Intel i5 4670K) with a discrete GPU that I'm sure can still handle older games. There's a 15-year-old Toshiba laptop with forgotten specs and a flaky power connector. And there's an Asus EeePC (remember those lol?). All of these could use some LRR (Linux Love & Resurrection) and perhaps I can find them new life with new owners.
The ThinkPad cult
Back to the ThinkPad obsession, there's a good chance that it'll diminish somewhat after I settle down for the long haul with Linux.
Logically, it doesn't make a lot of sense for me to buy an old ThinkPad just to tinker with it, because I wouldn't use it for actual work. But when did logic stop a fool from pursuing a dumb quest? It's what the heart wants, man!
The truth is, I'm becoming a luddite. Or maybe that's too strong of a word. More like "tech consumerism averse", or "tech nostalgic". You tell me.
Like many aging people, I've been pining for the "good old days" of tech (as in the 90s and early 2000s). You see, kids, back in my day they used to make REAL computers. Like the original IBM ThinkPad. No, seriously, compare a 20-year-old ThinkPad to a modern laptop. You could literally run the old one over with a car after dunking it in water, and it would still work just fine. True, it was roughly the size and shape of a stack of bricks, but still.
The bottom line is that it breaks my heart to see mountains of excellent hardware end up in the trash. Consumerism is a societal disease, and corporations are only too happy to encourage it. I want to do my part in reclaiming discarded pieces of tech history and restoring them to working order, giving them new life and new happy owners.
I think I've joined the ThinkPad cult. Send help! (A stack of old ThinkPads will do.)