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I'm listing below the specs of my Lenovo laptop:

  • Lenovo ThinkPad T430
  • 2349-Core i5 2.6 GHz-3230M/64-bit
  • Windows 10 Pro/Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
  • 4 Gb RAM
  • 500 Gb HDD
  • DVD
  • printer
  • 1366 x 768/14 wide
  • HD-Intel HD Graphics
  • update 4000

I'm hoping to run the latest Ubuntu on my Laptop, but it's not on Ubuntu Desktop certified hardware list, and so I'm a little worried that if I switch from Windows10 to Ubuntu the hardware might not be 100% compatible resulting in poor performance.

As a side note, I did see the T440 and T450 in the list but for past releases, and Lenovo in general seems to be pretty compatible with Linux.

Do you guys think that it's okay to make the switch? Thanks!!

Zanna
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richie
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    I would suggest downloading the ISO you would like to use, writing it to thumb-drive & trying it out. Certified hardware lists (or really any list) are usually out-of-date minutes after published, as they take resources to maintain... – guiverc Nov 11 '18 at 07:37
  • good idea. how much memory do you think the thumb drive would need? Also, everything (files, programs, etc..) would be saved in the thumb drive, right? – richie Nov 11 '18 at 07:42
  • By default, the ISO is written to the thumb drive as if it's a cdrom/dvd-rom (ie. is read-only). You can write it as a persistent thumb-drive (or install to thumb-drive) which then allows you to read/write files to it, and update your system, but the default ISO write runs from memory (slower as it's run from squashfs - compressed filesystem but still perfect for testing hardware works, just at a slower pace). Any 2gb thumb-drive should be fine - see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick if you want some aid on writing (there's better, but can't currently find it sorry) – guiverc Nov 11 '18 at 07:54
  • If it's not on the list, just don't go for it. Unfortunately I didn't realise there was a hardware compatibility list and spent 7-8 hours straight installing 16.04 an 18.04 on the T430 and guess what, I could feel while typing away on the terminal, the machine was not liking the software it was running. – Vijay Kumar Kanta Oct 05 '19 at 02:53

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After a quick Google search on the subject, it appears users of Manjaro Linux, a linux distribution based on arch linux, claim it is compatible with this version of your laptop.

This suggests to me that your laptop will be compatible when installing Ubuntu, and there should be no issues because the hardware is pretty good. For additional peace of mind, I will link you a thread I found on Reddit.

There are two users there claiming to run Mint on the same model. There is a user there claiming to run ElementaryOS with VM's and Matlab. There is a user there claiming to run Debian who had to configure wi-fi drivers.

So things look positive for you indeed and it is well worth a shot. As a side note, you can pick up windows installation media on ebay for about $15 with a license key, as I have in the past, and you should have no issues with the ISO. So a recovery to Windows would be a cheap and easy thing to perform worst case scenario - and nothing to worry about.

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    Thanks for clearing this up! Do you think it would be better to run Mint, Cinnamon, or even Manjaro over Ubuntu? I've used Ubuntu in the past, but I would be open to using new distros if it means better performance. – richie Nov 11 '18 at 08:07
  • Cinnamon is a version of mint, which is a Linux OS geared more towards beginners. Its cool in that you can install wine on it and get backwards compatibility with Windows 10 software. manjaro however, is based on arch and uses pacman as a package manager so it doesn't seem like a good choice unless you're familiar with arch distributions. It is entirely your call but I would stick with what you know. As Ubuntu only requires 2GB RAM, it is in its nature a very minimal distro, and it would be surprising if it was all that slow. –  Nov 11 '18 at 08:23
  • You could always keep your PC on windows initially, and use Unetbootin - https://unetbootin.github.io/ - to mount your iso's as dual booted to the C:/ drive without a need for a USB. It's a very easy tool to use and should provide you with a rough idea of what you'll get, but remember if there were hardware issues, booting it live wouldn't truthfully show you as live boots work entirely off RAM. You can hard install your ISO from this tool too however, and it has Arch, Mint and Ubuntu functionality built in. –  Nov 11 '18 at 08:26
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    That's an interesting way to go about it, but I already have a windows machine, and some of the stuff I'm planning to do requires Linux. Right now I'm trying to figure out how I should proceed with the Ubuntu installation. – richie Nov 11 '18 at 08:35
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    Because I don't wanna have windows on it while running ubuntu – richie Nov 11 '18 at 08:36
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    I've read some posts saying that Darik's Boot and Nuke might be a good way to wipe any OS (but it might be overkill). – richie Nov 11 '18 at 08:37
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    Do you have any suggestions? – richie Nov 11 '18 at 08:37
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    I've just read this on Ubuntu's installation guide:: Use the checkboxes to choose whether you'd like to install Ubuntu alongside another operating system, delete your existing operating system and replace it with Ubuntu, or — if you're an advanced user — choose the 'Something else' option. – richie Nov 11 '18 at 09:12
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    I think I can delete windows when installing ubuntu through a bootable flash drive – richie Nov 11 '18 at 09:13
  • if using a bootable flash drive then you can delete windows through the normal installer, which comes with a copy of gparted that can be used to resize the partitions that way or you can of course go the longer way and run ubuntu as a live installation, where you can fire up gparted and delete all the partitions from the live OS. It shuldn't give you too much trouble, just be aware with ubuntu you need to know how to size your partitions manually. It may be worth seeing a few youtube videos to familiarize yourself with how its done if you're not too sure. –  Nov 11 '18 at 12:34
  • That's the thing. A while back I was using Debian, and I used it for maybe 2 weeks then went back to windows. I thought I had deleted it from the machine, but today after installing ubuntu (which btw is working fine though takes a bit to start) using the "delete your existing operating system and replace it with Ubuntu" option I pressed F12 during restart to check. It seems both Debian and windows are still "inside" the machine, but with ubuntu as the main OS. – richie Nov 11 '18 at 13:09
  • I think I need to do exactly what you meantioned "resize the partitions" so my laptop can run 100% – richie Nov 11 '18 at 13:10
  • See the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIi7YevjwHU It might help clarify some stuff. –  Nov 11 '18 at 13:20