GREAT: New snapshot MX Linux 19.2 – Lenovo Thinkpad X201

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

https://forum.mxlinux.org/viewtopic.php?f=107&t=59094

I wrote about this one at the MX Linux forum because I installed MX Linux 19.2 on this Lenovo Thinkpad X201.
Imagine how well antiX 19 would run on this? I’m going to put antiX on another old laptop I freely acquired, an even older
HP unit, which I think will be a perfect home for antiX. I figured someone may enjoy this one because it would work great
anywhere. If you can find one of these old tanks used, cheap, or as a junkyard grab, NAB it! If it’s not water logged or
otherwise ruined, chances are VERY good that it will work perfectly for you too!

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Brian Masinick

[Member olsztyn]

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Brian Masinick wrote:

I wrote about this one at the MX Linux forum because I installed MX Linux 19.2 on this Lenovo Thinkpad X201.

All my current laptops are older Thinkpads. From X series I am using X61, which are Core2Duo and X220, which is i7.
Your X201 is way more powerful than my X61 notebooks. They run antiX very well though. Excellent laptops…

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Long ago I used a few T series Thinkpads and they were very good.

I think that this X201 is a LOT BIGGER than the other models I previously used.

I remember that they were among the first systems I actually used with a wireless networking connection. I used most other systems connected to wired Ethernet.

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Brian Masinick

[Member rayluo]

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We have similar taste. I also own Thinkpad X60, X220, T61, T410, among others. Back then, X series was as high tech as X-wing fighters, and T series stands for “(as solid as) tank”. 🙂

AntiX (on a Live USB) performs well on most if not all of them. I suspect the real performance factor is less about a computer’s model, but more about its specs. More specifically, it is more about their RAM available. 4GB or above RAM runs without any issue. 2GB would sometimes struggle, if too many heavy web pages are opened in different tabs.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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In addition to being solid the X201 also gives you a FREE arm workout if you carry it very far. Between 2000 and 2009 I had a few job assignments that would take me to Boston from southern New Hampshire.

If possible I would take a bus to the office where I was working. Depending on the assignment I might be near South Station, one of the wharf districts, such as the World Trade Center or I might have work near Fanuel Hall marketplace or maybe Copley Plaza.

Whether driving or taking the bus, it’s very likely that there is a walk involved between the place where you park, get off the bus or go between two offices. While it’s a walkable city, carrying a laptop case and a briefcase and walking gets you plenty of exercising.

I’m glad that I had something lighter than this X201, though the briefcase with laptop was more than enough, especially when trying to catch a particular bus instead of waiting another half hour or an hour!

I was in better shape then for sure!

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Brian Masinick

[Member seaken64]

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It could have been worse Brian. You could have been carrying around an old Osbourn or Kaypro portable!

I was just thinking about the heft of some of the older “laptops”. Really, not so much laptops as “portable” computers. My current Lenovo Ideapad is indeed something I can deal with on my lap. But my old ThinkPad R61i gets a little tiring after being on the lap for a while. I think the X series is smaller and lighter than most of the Thinkpads I had (T600, T22/23, R61, etc.)

Seaken64

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I think that I had a T42 with me on the go. Both my longtime Dell Inspiron 5558 laptop and the old Lenovo Thinkpad X201 are much heavier than the excellent T42.

I used to have a durable Dell D600 that I enjoyed in years past as well.

A Lenovo N22 Chromebook is a light, solid low end option for travel these days so sometimes I have left the heavier units home and use them more like mobile desktop devices. Besides these days I have a smartphone so I don’t even have to bring my laptop on every trip.

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Brian Masinick

[Member seaken64]

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I always bring a laptop. I hate “typing” on a phone. And I’m terrible at touch interfaces. So, a laptop is best for me to be productive.

I have a “netbook” but I have a hard time seeing the screen so I stick with a 14″ or 15″ laptop. I usually place it on the table or desk so the weight is not usually a problem and I use a wheely laptop case so I don’t have to carry over the shoulder.

I’ve been considering a Chromebook. But I am mostly satisfied with the Lenovo Ideapad I bought last year. I dual-boot W10 and MX and use VirtualBox for antiX.

Seaken64

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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seaken64 wrote:

I always bring a laptop. I hate “typing” on a phone. And I’m terrible at touch interfaces. So, a laptop is best for me to be productive.

I have a “netbook” but I have a hard time seeing the screen so I stick with a 14″ or 15″ laptop. I usually place it on the table or desk so the weight is not usually a problem and I use a wheely laptop case so I don’t have to carry over the shoulder.

I’ve been considering a Chromebook. But I am mostly satisfied with the Lenovo Ideapad I bought last year. I dual-boot W10 and MX and use VirtualBox for antiX.

Seaken64

The “rub” between a laptop and the Chromebook is that the inexpensive Chromebooks, while relatively light, and they do have surprisingly good keyboards, they aren’t very fast, unless you purchase a more “powerful” version, and then you’re paying almost as much as any other laptop (or mid to high end smartphone).

I don’t type very long messages on phones either. This would be really pushing it; I’m using my Dell Inspiron 5558 laptop right now.
I’ll say one thing for the old HP and Lenovo laptops that I *rescued* at my brother in law’s house from potentially heading to a recycle bin; both of them have better keyboards than this Inspiron; this one is solid, but after using the Thinkpad in particular, this one feels stiff and gummy, whereas the Thinkpad has a nice, solid click, nearly as good as the best keyboards.

The Chromebooks are better than this Inspiron in that area, too, though otherwise I really like the Inspiron; it’s also very solid and has provided me with several good years already.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I’m actually trying out something else on the HP laptop.

It’s really an old Compaq model, rebranded to HP after HP bought Digital Equipment Corporation, Compaq Computer and Tandem. It’s the HPCompaq2510.

I’m installing Exton Linux.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I put antiX 19 with updates on the third computer, a desktop HP computer. It went very well.

The desktop system has a lot of disk space, between 650-700 GB!

HP Pavilion Slimline 5000 series.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Brian Masinick.
• This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Brian Masinick.

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Brian Masinick

[Member olsztyn]

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Brian Masinick wrote:

I’m installing Exton Linux.

Which edition of Exton Linux are you installing? Out of curiosity I tested memory use of Exton DebEx, which appeared to me the least memory demanding and it seems it is using almost 700 M running nothing except Htop. Personally this is way too high, comparing to fully configured antiX IceWM using about 220 M.
Frankly, playing with various desktops – Gnome, Mate, Budgie, KDE, XFCE, etc., I fail to see any advantage in these desktop managers except aesthetics of Gnome and derivatives. From my rudimentary memory testing it appears to me XFCE uses by far the least but default aesthetics appear relatively crude, so it needs some work similar to the one put into IceWM.
Budgie based Exton DebEx uses file manager PCmanFM, which has no advantage over Rox or SpaceFM.
In my view the only thing missing in SpaceFM is support of networking, such as Thunar would do.
Just my two cents in trying to evaluate various desktops…

Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I’m not 100% certain which version, but I think that it’s the exact same one that you are using.

I put it on a spare parts laptop and I don’t have it turned on now to verify. 95% likely that it’s the DebEx one.

The system works OK, definitely not as light as antiX!

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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inxi
CPU: Dual Core Intel Core2 Duo U7600 (-MCP-) 
speed/min/max: 1197/800/1200 MHz Kernel: 5.7.6-exton x86_64 Up: 17m 
Mem: 310.6/1963.0 MiB (15.8%) Storage: 74.53 GiB (6.7% used) Procs: 133 
Shell: inxi: 3.1.04 
masinick@brian-hpcompaq2510:~$ inxi -Fxz
System:    Kernel: 5.7.6-exton x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 Desktop: Enlightenment 0.23.1 
           Distro: ExLight (Debian GNU/Linux bullseye/sid) 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP Compaq 2510p Notebook PC v: F.0E serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 30C9 v: KBC Version 75.28 serial: <filter> BIOS: Hewlett-Packard v: 68MSP Ver. F.0E 
           date: 11/04/2008 
Battery:   ID-1: C23D charge: 74.2 Wh condition: 74.6/74.6 Wh (100%) model: Hewlett-Packard Primary status: Unknown 
CPU:       Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core2 Duo U7600 bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Core Merom rev: D L2 cache: 2048 KiB 
           flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 ssse3 bogomips: 4788 
           Speed: 1197 MHz min/max: 800/1200 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1197 2: 1197 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: i915 v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:02.0 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.8 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1280x800~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel 965GM (CL) v: 2.1 Mesa 20.1.1 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 82801H HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:1b.0 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.7.6-exton 
Network:   Device-1: Intel 82566MM Gigabit Network vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k port: 2060 
           bus ID: 00:19.0 
           IF: enp0s25 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network driver: iwl4965 v: in-tree: port: 2120 bus ID: 10:00.0 
           IF: wlp16s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 74.53 GiB used: 4.99 GiB (6.7%) 
           ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Toshiba model: MK8009GAH size: 74.53 GiB temp: 43 C 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 68.70 GiB used: 4.99 GiB (7.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 
Swap:      ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 4.22 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/sda2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 50.0 C mobo: 25.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 133 Uptime: 17m Memory: 1.92 GiB used: 310.0 MiB (15.8%) Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 9.3.0 
           Packages: 1407 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.16 inxi: 3.1.04 

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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That’s the Exton Linux version, so it’s apparently Enlightenment 0.23.1 on ExLight (Debian GNU/Linux bullseye/sid).
It’s a decent distro, though I think that antiX with IceWM would run a bit faster, though there’s plenty of capacity for either of them,
This is a pretty old system. Of the three that my brother in law gave me, this one has a partially broken laptop hinge, but the system works.
The other two systems are more functional. I really like the Lenovo Thinkpad X201, and I also like the desktop; that has a nice, big monitor.

In the long run, it’s unlikely that I will keep this system; I’ll find an appropriate place and donate it.
I may keep the Thinkpad X201, even though it’s heavy for it’s size and age.
The desktop HP has a beautiful monitor, but the keyboard is so-so and the desktop takes up more space that I prefer to use these days.
All three of these systems work, so anyone trying one of our distributions is likely to have success; I know that HP has a good Debian presence and exposure; a former Debian project leader at one time worked at HP and I found many HP and IBM engineers attending the Debconf that I went to a long time ago.

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Brian Masinick

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