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Thinkpad T430


raymac46

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Out with my daughter in Ottawa today and afterwards I dropped by the large Canada Computers store. They had a really good sale on refurbished Thinkpads so how could I resist. The one I got is a T430 14 inch model.

The T430 was the first one to replace the old style keyboard with a newer Chiclet style. But it's a pretty nice keyboard in its own right. Good feel and travel and space enough between the keys for my fat finger typing. It still has the little red pointing stick although I prefer a mouse.

It came with 8GB of RAM and a 128 GB Samsung SSD so no upgrades needed. It had Windows 10 installed but that is gone now. Maybe it'll come back in a virtual machine maybe not.

It has an Ivy Bridge 3rd gen Intel mobile processor and it flies with Debian Stretch GNOME desktop. The difference from Virtualbox is quite amazing. This unit will be my on the rails Linux tester. The llttle netbook I have is fine but really too slow and memory deprived to do that. And my other netbooks are museum pieces.

 

ray@debian-ray-T430:~$ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: debian-ray-T430 Kernel: 4.9.0-2-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 6.3.0)
	   Desktop: Gnome 3.22.3 (Gtk 3.22.11-1)
	   Distro: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)
Machine:   Device: laptop System: LENOVO product: 2347H76 v: ThinkPad T430
	   Mobo: LENOVO model: 2347H76
	   UEFI [Legacy]: LENOVO v: G1ET94WW (2.54 ) date: 04/22/2013
Battery    BAT0: charge: 60.9 Wh 100.1% condition: 60.9/93.6 Wh (65%)
	   model: LGC 45N1011 status: Full
CPU:	   Dual core Intel Core i5-3320M (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
	   flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 10376
	   clock speeds: max: 3300 MHz 1: 1207 MHz 2: 1286 MHz
	   3: 1201 MHz 4: 1200 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller
	   bus-ID: 00:02.0
	   Display Server: X.Org 1.19.2 driver: N/A
	   Resolution: 1366x768@59.98hz
	   GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ivybridge Mobile
	   GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 13.0.6 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:	 Card Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio Controller
	   driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
	   Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.9.0-2-amd64
Network:   Card-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection
	   driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k port: 5080 bus-ID: 00:19.0
	   IF: enp0s25 state: down mac: <filter>
	   Card-2: Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6205 [Taylor Peak]
	   driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 03:00.0
	   IF: wlp3s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 128.0GB (9.9% used)
	   ID-1: /dev/sda model: SAMSUNG_MZ7PC128 size: 128.0GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 110G used: 4.5G (5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
	   ID-2: swap-1 size: 8.27GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0C mobo: N/A
	   Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 2555
Info:	  Processes: 193 Uptime: 16 min Memory: 1545.6/7689.3MB
	   Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: N/A
	   Client: Shell (bash 4.4.111) inxi: 2.3.5
ray@debian-ray-T430:~$

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Well things cost a bit more in Canada but under $300 US, Also I got the SSD and more RAM in the deal so by Canadian standards not bad. It's in beautiful shape as well.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Cluttermagnet

FWIW Betty uses an old T420 that I bought on Ebay pretty cheap. We like it.

Does pretty much everything we need it to. I think it was a bit north of 100

dollars when I got it.* And I have an even older R61 Thinkpad I'm working on

right now. Right around 100. also when I got this one. The R61 lives over at

Casa David most of the time with my other cat. I have it here at Casa Betty

for updates, just cranked something like 230M into it using Comcast...

 

Our keyboards may be like yours, Ray. I'd call them 'chicklet types'- anyway

they are pretty decent keyboards... Ours both have that red stick too.

 

Clutter

 

 

* Hmmm, maybe more like 150. or so if I remember right...

Edited by Cluttermagnet
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@clutter I think the older models had a more mechanical type keyboard that a lot of Thinkpad folks prefer. The 430 is definitely a chiclet type keyboard but very nice. Lenovo makes nice keyboards even in their more "consumer grade" laptops.

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A couple of weeks with the Thinkpad and so far so good.

I continue to use Debian testing as my daily driver. As I intend to use this machine as a relatively modern testbed I can't guarantee that it will be the last distro I install though. I have also got Antergos running in a VirtualBox just to see how it goes. I could probably install Arch but I have that one running on a small netbook so I'll continue to use it there.

Aside from some minor glitches (no Flash in Chromium, need to install with a wire because Intel wifi firmware not present) Debian is a good choice for this laptop. It is a bit heavy and I can't say I am crazy about the GDM3 display manager but it runs well. I have added in a few shell extensions to make GNOME more user friendly - probably Ubuntu will do something similar when they switch back to GNOME next year. I have plenty of RAM and the Ivy Bridge mobile processor is fast enough. It flies compared to the Atom powered netbook.

Edited by raymac46
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Well I got my VPN (Private Internet Access) working on the Thinkpad.

On my Linux Mint desktop or Windows for that matter I use PIA's own management client. A little green or red fellow shows up in the system tray. However that doesn't work in Debian Gnome.

I had to forget about PIA's client and just use openVPN and Network Manager. That involved:

  • Configuring NetworkManager.conf
  • Downloading all the openVPN and NetworkManager-openVPN packages
  • setting up an Open-VPN-setup folder with all the available locations
  • configuring Network Manager to create a VPN profile with my PIA user ID password security and gateway info

Most of what I needed to do was outlined in this howto:

 

https://www.privatei...ntu-mint-debian

 

After all this my VPN is working.

Edited by raymac46
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securitybreach

Well I got my VPN (Private Internet Access) working on the Thinkpad.

On my Linux Mint desktop or Windows for that matter I use PIA's own management client. A little green or red fellow shows up in the system tray. However that doesn't work in Debian Gnome.

I had to forget about PIA's client and just use openVPN and Network Manager. That involved:

  • Configuring NetworkManager.conf
  • Downloading all the openVPN and NetworkManager-openVPN packages
  • setting up an OPen-VPN-setup folder with all the available locations
  • configuring Network Manager to create a VPN profile with my PIA user ID password security and gateway info

Most of what I needed to do was outlined in this howto:

 

https://www.privatei...ntu-mint-debian

 

After all this my VPN is working.

 

 

Wow, that is an extreme over kill. To use openvpn on Archlinuxs, all you need to do is download the .ovpn file. Then copy it to /etc/opevpn/client/ and rename the extension of the file to .ovpn.conf. So like Whateverlocation.ovpn to Whateverlocation.ovpn.conf. Then run this systemctl command:

 

systemctl start openvpn-client@Whateverlocation.ovpn.service

 

Then to autostart it:

 

systemctl enabel opevpn-client@Whateverlocation.ovpn.service

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I think the difference is that you have to use GNOME's network configuration to set up PIA. If you are running GNOME Shell desktop in Debian. It looks simpler in Arch but I don't see how you would get your PIA ID and passsword configured.

Edited by raymac46
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securitybreach

I think the difference is that you have to use GNOME's network configuration to set up PIA. If you are running GNOME Shell desktop in Debian. It looks simpler in Arch but I don't see how you would get your PIA ID and passsword configured.

 

Some openvpn config files use the line:

auth-user-pass auth.txt

 

For instance: auth-user-pass /home/securitybreach/auth.txt. The file is just a text document with username on one line and password on another. Some allow this file to be encrypted and some use plaintexts ones.

 

The VPN provider that I use gives you a custom config file with a pgp key unique to my account.

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