My boss gifted me an old thinkpad x31

Is he doing lines and smoking or just smoking very crooked joints?
- Yes
- He doesn't know, that's how fucked up he is.
I love it!!!

I'm new to Linux; what's with the ThinkPad hype?

They generally have really great linux support for all of their hardware (touchpads, fingerprint readers, etc.), and provide bios updates via fwdup. They are also just nice laptops.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/Lenovo
- Yeah back when it was IBM before they sold off to Lenovo. Back when their biggest selling point was their priority was keeping you up & running and getting work done. Nowadays nearly all the products are made with the priority “So, how do we design this so the user will have to pay for it multiple times?”
They're reliable, good quality, have amazing keyboards, and work well with Linux (some even support Libreboot).
- Years after using one for work, I still cannot get used to having Ctrl not being the leftmost key.
I've owned/used HPs, Dells, and several Thnkpads and the thinkpads by far are always the best machines. They are built to last, support is top notch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQX4FLrm9ac

makes me think of the good ol't times when the air was cleaner, roads were safer and our bosses used to pay us in Thinkpads, not this "fiat money" nonsense.

Very cool. I love those IBM Thinkpads. ~~Fuck lenovo~~

the older lenovo models aren't bad, but the shit they pump out recently is well, shit
- I thought Lenovo was two different brands, one consumer (terrible) and one corporate (decent). Is that no longer true?
- Haven't really used the older models but the x1c line is decent imo. Also t14. Z line is also good but focuses on different crowd.

I wish someone randomly gifted me a thinkpad as well

You can find them for really good prices usually.
I mean, work in a tech field and have good relations with people who manage hardware, you'll get to keep some that goes to garbage then, you'll be surprised how much fairly recent hardware is thrown out by companies
- I already do, and most hardware in the office are macbooks, toshibas, and dells. Also, it’s no longer as common for companies to allow employees to buy/adopt old hardware and they choose to recycle instead.

Thigh socks not included

don't worry, I do have some
- I assume you also have a Blåhaj :3

Good boss. What are you using it as? I'm guessing some homelab setup but will be interesting to know

so far using it as cd player and file writer, would've used it as a dvd player, but the video playback is not that great
- I left mine as XP, keep it around for a couple of ancient ham radio apps.
- CD and DVD? I’ve been 100% media server since around 2003. I wholly recommend it.

I'm a gnu/linux noob. I recently installed Pop OS on two older laptops. Am loving it so far. Going to work on getting games functioning on one of them next.

Was blown away when the built-in Disks program was able to easily fix a couple of thumb drives I have that were suffering from logical corruption. They were completely unusable in Windows 11. I tried 4 different methods in Windows 11 to fix them, with zero luck. Disks fixed them in 2 clicks. They are nicer thumb drives and were somewhat expensive. I am very happy to have them back.

Libreboot it.

These are good at holding all sorts of things like doors.

This is from 2004: https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/ibm-thinkpad-x31 It will chew amps (electricity). Recycle it as best you can. Grab a modern box instead.

Unless sparks are free where you live, this beast will become a liability very quickly.

I totally get what you're saying, but I suspect the OP is not going to be using this device full-time. Or even part-time.
Why? It is working just fine. No need to landfill something functional

What distro did you put on it?

debian, due to the good 32bit support
- Nice. Seems kind of appropriate, given the age of the machine (besides the 32bit support).
don't know about distro but I can see KDE logo there.
- no, that's in fact lxqt, kde is too heavy for this old machine
Look at the bottom left corner. It looks like Lubuntu to me.
- I tried, but I couldn't make out the icon

Nice. I use older lappies to remote control my i7 machine. They can be fairly good dumb terminals.

How? I'm interested
- Mostly just using Rustdesk or Nomachine, or a remote desktop client for best results.

Due to no mousepad I would recommend installing a tiling wm like sway (forgot to mention I use a Thinkpad, yes I know about the nipple. But consider the extremely high quality keyboard).

You can just tickle the ni…trackpoint?
- Yeah just rub the clit
- I have rubbed the Thinkpad nipple many times and I occasionally use it, I still prefer the keyboard
nah trackpoint is just a better touchpad
- I use a Thinkpad, the trackpad is nice but honestly I prefer the keyboard for navigation
- My first laptop was a handed down R52.
  Thanks to that, I never got good with a touchpad.
  Now, it's either mouse or a trackpoint for me.
IMHO, it has a TrackPoint, there's no need for a a trackpad. I have a x201 on Linux Mint and literally just disable the trackpad.
maybe I will, how's the 32bit compatibility in your experience?
- Not sure, my Thinkpad uses a 64bit CPU (t440p)

I wonder what distro did you use

Slackware and Debian would be the most popular period-correct options.
Half those laptops are older than Ubuntu.
- I'd wager something like Mandriva being an option too. Fedora was meh at best at that time. Or even Suse.
- Oh okay

I'd run XFCE themed with Chicago95 in this everyday.