I've had my X60 Tablet for about a week now, and I've really been enjoying using it!

I love the classic form factor and industrial style of these older machines, even if they aren't quite as modular or moddable out of the box as some of the T-series laptops.

To squeeze as much daily-driver usability out of it as possible on a budget, I went ahead and tracked down a complete, intact X61 Tablet motherboard and swapped it into the X60t chassis, pairing it with a 250GB SSD. Flashing Middleton’s BIOS went smoothly, though getting everything set up definitely took a bit more patience than expected.

The biggest hurdle so far has been RAM: finding reasonably priced DDR2 SODIMMs is no joke these days. I managed to score a 2x4GB kit (yes, the unofficial 8GB DDR2 support is a lifesaver!) which should be arriving tomorrow. Getting back to a native 64-bit architecture has been great, running 64-bit AntiX with i3wm for when I'm working on code. I haven’t noticed a massive performance leap just yet, but I'm chalking that up to running on limited RAM for the moment and still needing to fine-tune things.

I haven't tackled any of the Wacom touchscreen or digitizer features yet either; since I've been laser-focused on squeezing out raw performance first, it just hasn't felt necessary to attack yet.

Does anyone else still daily drive one of these vintage machines? What are you guys doing to keep your older ThinkPads relevant and usable for modern workflows?

Hey everyone,

I am at my absolute wits' end trying to fix a sudden Wi-Fi issue on my vintage Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet. The weirdest part is that I was literally browsing the web on this thing last night without a single issue, and today it completely refuses to connect.

Whenever I try to connect to my home network via the Connman system tray, it immediately spits out:

Connman returned the following error: connect-failed

It doesn't even try to pull up a password prompt window—it just fails instantly.

Specs:

Machine: Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet

OS: antiX Linux (219G drive, 3GB RAM)

Wireless Card: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG

Network Setup: Trying to connect to a standard WPA2/WPA3 home router network

Everything I've Done to Troubleshoot So Far:

Created a New User Profile:

Tried switching to a completely clean user profile to rule out local user configuration/desktop environment corruption. The UI loaded beautifully, but the Wi-Fi still threw the exact same instant connect-failed box.

Cleared Connman System Caches:

Stopped the service and force-wiped the global network state folder (/var/lib/connman/\*) to clear any stuck deauth states.

Complete OS Wipe and Clean Reinstall:

Did a total drive format and fresh install of antiX from a live bootable USB drive. Even on a completely pristine OS, the GUI still immediately gives the connect-failed error without prompting for a password.

Bypassed GUI via connmanctl:

Ran the interactive terminal tool, registered the agent, and used connect <service\\_string>. It gave me an immediate Agent ReportError... connect-failed without asking for a passphrase.

Direct wpa_supplicant Configuration:

Killed Connman and manually generated a wifi.conf using wpa_passphrase. When running sudo wpa_supplicant -B -i wlan0 -c \~/wifi.conf, it actually outputs "Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant"!

DHCP Struggle:

Even though wpa_supplicant successfully authenticates the hardware link in the background, antiX's native dhcpcd daemon seems to get stuck in a background socket loop. Commands like sudo dhcpcd wlan0 just say "sending commands to dhcpcd process" or "send OK" without ever successfully binding or fetching a local IP address (like 192.168.1.x).

The Dilemma:

Because the card can still actively scan and see dozens of surrounding networks perfectly fine, and because it worked flawlessly last night, I'm struggling to tell if this is a sudden thermal/voltage hardware failure on the transmission side of the internal 3945ABG card, or if it's a driver/protocol incompatibility issue with modern WPA2/WPA3 routers that Connman is panicking over.

Has anyone dealt with dhcpcd or connman brick-walling like this on legacy ThinkPads running antiX? Any advice on forcing a connection or determining if the card itself is totally shot would be amazing. Thanks!

Upfront: this isn't ThinkPad-specific tooling, and I'm the author. No firmware checks, nothing about fwupd or the TrackPoint. Posting here because of who runs these machines rather than what's inside them — if that's not welcome, say so and I'll take it down.

The thing that made me write it: I've moved between three ThinkPads and every time I restored my setup from the old one. Dotfiles, ~/.ssh, project folders, the lot. Which means I'd been carrying the same key material forward for years without ever looking at it — a couple of unencrypted private keys, a ~/.ssh sitting at the wrong mode, authorized_keys entries for a VPS I decommissioned in 2023. None of it was a breach. It was just accumulated drift that nothing ever prompted me to check.

Then I looked at what my AI coding assistants had been writing to disk. Claude Code and Cursor keep transcripts, memory files and MCP configs under ~/.claude and ~/.cursor, and mine had live API keys sitting in them in plaintext. That's the part that actually bothered me, because a laptop goes to conferences and coffee shops in a way a desktop doesn't.

So: Bulwark. It's a desktop app — open it, hit Scan, and it checks the machine's real config (SSH, sudo, kernel sysctls, cron, file permissions, persistence), runs ClamAV if you have it, and scans the AI assistants for leaked secrets. Findings are in plain language, sorted by how much they matter, each with the exact command to fix it — and most have a one-click fix that's dry-run by default and backs up whatever it touches. Screenshots are in the repo.

Free, Apache-2.0, Rust, entirely local — no account, no telemetry, nothing leaves the machine.

Desktop app .deb, .rpm or AppImage from the releases page — this is the one in the screenshots
Servers/CLI `bulwarkctl` on the Ubuntu PPA, the AUR and Fedora COPR (same engine, no GUI)

https://github.com/vietanhdev/bulwark

Download: https://bulwark.nrl.ai/download

Genuinely curious what it finds on other people's machines, especially older ones that have been carried through a few installs. And if you've got hardware-specific checks that would make sense here — Secure Boot state, TPM, firmware — tell me, because rules are just YAML files and that's a gap I'd like to fill.

Got this t440 for 1700 UAH (roughly 38 USD). Void, runit, still a capable computer!

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