I picked up a Lenovo Thinkpad x131e in mint condition for $40 a couple of months back; I thought I'd use it for playing around with Chrome OS.

As soon as I plugged it in, I got the "Chrome will no longer be updated" message. Bummer.

I figured I'd turn it into a Linux box and did some poking around on the
web. I found a great web page https://mrchromebox.tech with a lot of information about Chromebooks and BIOSes.

Downloaded the hardware reference manual (Thanks, Lenovo, for keeping up
with IBM's reputation for docs) and opened the system up. swapped the 2x2GB memory sticks for 2x4 I had laying around after another upgrade, and swapped out the bog-standard 32GB 2.5" SSD for a 480GB SSD.

Flip a write-protect switch inside, flip it.

Put the whole thing back together, Lenovo has continued the other IBM habit
of noting the size of the screw next to the screw hole.

Put everything back together, booted into developer mode, opened a shell,
ran a 3 line script and updated the BIOS. Reboot, downloaded Bodhi Linux
onto a stick, booted to the stick and installed Linux on it.

Nothing went awry, and the whole process took around 45 minutes.

The hardware is nothing to write home about - it's a 1.5 ghz celeron with
Ivy Bridge chipset, but it *was* $40. Decent screen, touchpad and
trackpoint, and a nice Lenovo "Island" keyboard. 2 USB 3 ports, onboard ethernet, VGA and HDMI, and a SD card slot.


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Hello poindexter FORTRAN!

** On Wednesday 21.07.21 - 07:07, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to All:

I picked up a Lenovo Thinkpad x131e in mint condition for
$40 a couple of months back..

Downloaded the hardware reference manual (Thanks, Lenovo,
for keeping up with IBM's reputation for docs) and opened
the system up..

The maintenance manuals are wonderful. They have come is handy
for my T40p and T60 laptops.

Put the whole thing back together, Lenovo has continued
the other IBM habit of noting the size of the screw next
to the screw hole.

OH... THAT's what that means. :/ I needed to open my T60 to
replace the CPU fan and ended up with one screw LESS than I
needed.

..and swapped out the bog-standard 32GB 2.5" SSD for a
480GB SSD.

That is a sweet upgrade. I have imagined doing something
similar for my T60 and swap out the 235GB HDD for an SDD double
the size.

..and a nice Lenovo "Island" keyboard.

What an island keyboard? The x131e looks like any other
laptop.

2 USB 3 ports, ..

Ah.. but do they all work? My T40p and T60 saw diminishing
functionality with the USB ports over the years.


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Ogg wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

..and a nice Lenovo "Island" keyboard.

What an island keyboard? The x131e looks like any other
laptop.

They're also called "chiclet" keyboards - like a MacBook, where the keys are inset into a front bezel, as opposed to old Thinkpads where the keys were
like a traditional keyboard.


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Hello poindexter FORTRAN!

** On Sunday 25.07.21 - 07:20, poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Ogg:

What['s] an island keyboard? The x131e looks like any
other laptop.

They're also called "chiclet" keyboards - like a MacBook,
where the keys are inset into a front bezel, as opposed to
old Thinkpads where the keys were like a traditional
keyboard.

Ah.. chicklet keys. OK. My most recent Thinkpad T540p has
those. I hate them. As a result, I don't like using the T540p
very much at all. The T540p also lacks the extra L and R
buttons on the trackpad. That makes R-clicking very awkward.
Instead, the pad kinda tilts to the right - but the mechanics
of that seems to stick every once in a while and doesn't work.


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Re: Surprised it was this easy...
By: Ogg to poindexter FORTRAN on Sun Jul 25 2021 05:47 pm

Ah.. chicklet keys. OK. My most recent Thinkpad T540p has
those. I hate them. As a result, I don't like using the T540p
very much at all. The T540p also lacks the extra L and R
buttons on the trackpad. That makes R-clicking very awkward.
Instead, the pad kinda tilts to the right - but the mechanics
of that seems to stick every once in a while and doesn't work.

I have a similar Thinkpad, a W540. I agree about the trackpad - I don't like the lack of separate physical buttons. I think Lenovo went back to separate trackpad buttons on newer Thinkpad models.

Nightfox

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