Pretty sure that the thinkpads are one of better supported laptops out there for Linux. And going through installations nowadays is easier than ever.
That said I recommend checking on any distributions page for:
Hardware support
Software Availability
The rest is personal preference:
If you are an advanced user then reading the documentation available should suffice to make a quick informed decision.
If you are a non technical user then choosing a distribution that ships (preferrably defaults to) a Desktop Environment that you like will be the most important decision you will take. These DEs have their own suite of apps, interface and workflow. Choose Gnome if you prefer clean, intuitive and easy to use interfaces or KDE Plasma for more customization and control. Maybe even the very light XFCE for low end computers. You will find that Plasma looks like a Windows interface and Gnome looks like a MacOS one.
If you are somewhere in between I suggest testing the easy stuff first and then going on to the harder stuff later.
In the end the most important thing is to test things out, knowing when stuff is out of your reach of skill and not to get lost in the sea of options.
@299792458ms Hi, I managed to get MX Linux installed on a ThinkPad X1 Carbon. However a few of the special character keys are incorrectly assigned. I can find all the keyboard options available on MX, but how do i find out which is the compatible one with an X1 Carbon UK Qwerty key board lay out? Thank you
I can only guess you have a variant keyboard layout and your desktop automatically defaults to a main layout, check this page to see what variant your keyboard is and then go into the settings of your desktop environment and switch your keyboard layout. If that does not help then I would check what keys are wrongly mapped and use that info troubleshoot on MX Linux forums.
Personally I have latinamerican spanish layout and it was pretty easy to set it up during installation and even after.
Also, did you choose MX Linux because it is first on the Distrowatch site?
@299792458ms I liked Linux Mint after using it alot for my first Linux. I use Windows 7 at work and like the layout. When I wanted to try another distro, I was looking around, I like the look of Pop_OS and MX Linux. I want ease of use and productivity so, so the Windows 7 style of MX appealed to me a lot. Thanks for your tips, I will try fix keyboard over the weekend. Cheers👍
You can use the GUI to remap keys. I forget what the application is but you probably can find it by searching “keyboard” in the desktop panel search bar. If nothing else you can we search Xfce4 keyboard configuration (assuming you are using Xfce4 which is the default)
What exactly do you need help with?
Pretty sure that the thinkpads are one of better supported laptops out there for Linux. And going through installations nowadays is easier than ever.
That said I recommend checking on any distributions page for:
The rest is personal preference:
If you are an advanced user then reading the documentation available should suffice to make a quick informed decision.
If you are a non technical user then choosing a distribution that ships (preferrably defaults to) a Desktop Environment that you like will be the most important decision you will take. These DEs have their own suite of apps, interface and workflow. Choose Gnome if you prefer clean, intuitive and easy to use interfaces or KDE Plasma for more customization and control. Maybe even the very light XFCE for low end computers. You will find that Plasma looks like a Windows interface and Gnome looks like a MacOS one.
If you are somewhere in between I suggest testing the easy stuff first and then going on to the harder stuff later.
In the end the most important thing is to test things out, knowing when stuff is out of your reach of skill and not to get lost in the sea of options.
@299792458ms Hi, I managed to get MX Linux installed on a ThinkPad X1 Carbon. However a few of the special character keys are incorrectly assigned. I can find all the keyboard options available on MX, but how do i find out which is the compatible one with an X1 Carbon UK Qwerty key board lay out? Thank you
I can only guess you have a variant keyboard layout and your desktop automatically defaults to a main layout, check this page to see what variant your keyboard is and then go into the settings of your desktop environment and switch your keyboard layout. If that does not help then I would check what keys are wrongly mapped and use that info troubleshoot on MX Linux forums.
Personally I have latinamerican spanish layout and it was pretty easy to set it up during installation and even after.
Also, did you choose MX Linux because it is first on the Distrowatch site?
@299792458ms I liked Linux Mint after using it alot for my first Linux. I use Windows 7 at work and like the layout. When I wanted to try another distro, I was looking around, I like the look of Pop_OS and MX Linux. I want ease of use and productivity so, so the Windows 7 style of MX appealed to me a lot. Thanks for your tips, I will try fix keyboard over the weekend. Cheers👍
No problem, hope it works for you.
You can use the GUI to remap keys. I forget what the application is but you probably can find it by searching “keyboard” in the desktop panel search bar. If nothing else you can we search Xfce4 keyboard configuration (assuming you are using Xfce4 which is the default)