Pop!_OS (Linux) on My Old ThinkPad T440s is FAST!

Yeah, I know these two programs are made for Linux first and then ported to run on Windows second so it's not exactly a fair comparison BUT it's still impressive how fast these normally notoriously slow (to load) programs are starting up on this old laptop!
That aside I just like Pop!_OS in general on my old T440s ThinkPad as an alternative to the soon to be extinct Windows 10. The fact is it was quick and easy to install and everything just worked right out of the box! Installing these programs was a one click affair and updates will be less intrusive too! I just don't see any downsides at all really and it's fun to have a computer around running something other than Windows just for the unique experience. I'd say if you have a spare computer that doesn't get as much use you should give it a go!

[@Waifu4Life]

Been daily driving Nobara OS for close to 2 months now, I only boot in Windows for work. Once the clock hits 17:00, I reboot my computer and load up Nobara.

[@itsL0F1]

I have a very old laptop with i3 cpu and 6gb of ram it run smoothly too I just revived it with linux

[@ravagingwolverine]

I love Thinkpads of that era. As I recall, the T440 is quite well regarded so keeping it going is good and it should be reasonably capable with Linux and an SSD. I've thought of picking up a T440 before. I'm writing this comment on my Thinkpad L430 with the i5-3320M. I also have an L420 that I recently revived that is really nice with the i5-2520M. Those old i5s can still go for a lot of things, especially on Linux. The fourth-gen chip should be a good bit more capable too. Certainly, the desktop fourth-gen chips are still very nice with the 4770 and the K variant still being recommended for budget gaming setups. But Linux with an SSD is a great way to revive and old laptop and probably would make newer ones feel snappier too. I've been on Linux for a while now thanks to various issues with Windows, and I love it. I haven't used Pop, but I hear people like it. I always recommend Mint to people and have gotten good feedback with that. I go back and forth between recommending the Cinnamon or MATE versions as Cinnamon requires more tweaking out of the box for me than it used to. But it's amazing how fast one of those Linux installs is. It's so easy that if something isn't working, it's trivial just to try a different distro rather than trying to troubleshoot. I just did that a couple of weeks ago with an MX install that had some issues. I remember back in the day, Windows installations were painfully slow and so were the updates(which often broke my system). And I like that Linux doesn't nag about updates. But, great to see an old laptop get refreshed that way. Those old chips still have some life in them for general use.

[@rm9sbg93zxjzg]

My T14 runs Debian, liked the Pop but is a bit loaded on resources. I wish they come out with the cosmic desktop to see how it is

[@Videogamelover58]

Awesome stuff

[@FlintG]

I have a mac mini from 2012 I wonder if pop os would work very well on that, I have mint already but this one could be better.

[@MN12BIRD]

Im no expert when it comes to Linux but mint is a popular option and if they're both using Gnome(?) they might be close enough

[@MorganNilsson]

Usually, people who install Linux on older Mac(s) prefer Ubuntu, and with the upcoming new version of Ubuntu 24.04 I'd say go with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and wait for Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS release and later upgrade to that.
Ubuntu gives a more "premium" touch to things. I run Ubuntu on my Microsoft Surface Laptop 2, I call it "Ubuntu Surface Laptop 2".
I've tried so many different distros for this laptop. But Ubuntu has been top-notch.

[@mikedroid95]

You can dual boot windows and Linux on the same pc or run Linux inside a virtualbox on windows

[@MN12BIRD]

Oh yeah I was dual booting windows and Linux back in the late 90s or early 2000s but honestly on my laptop I see no reason to need Windows going forward. VM could be good to test and try other OSs on my desktop though.

[@dave4shmups]

Nice! What GPU do you use in your PC?

[@MN12BIRD]

Radeon RX 6750 XT 12GB

[@dave4shmups]

How do you update this, compared to installing the latest update for Windows 11? Do you have to do it as often?

[@MN12BIRD]

the pop shop seems to handle most updates but perhaps not the big updates like if it's a kernel update I'm not sure.

[@dave4shmups]

Gotcha.

[@noodledealer7447]

Just installed Xubuntu on my T440s. I’m also amazed how fast it is! Might check out pop_os too