The old Thinkpad X201 has become my daily driver
          ================================================


                        Lenovo Thinkpad X201
                        --------------------

The X201 is a machine from 2010, and one of the last Thinkpad X-models
with a classical keyboard. And like all Thinkpads, it has a great
TrackPoint.

                               Specs
                               .....

I upgraded the RAM to 8 Gb.

Some specs of the laptop:

* Intel Core i5 M 520 CPU
* 8 GB DDR3 RAM 2Rx8
* Display size 12.1 inches 
* 1200x800 display resolution
* 128 Gb SSD (SAMSUNG MZ7LN128)

So, in this present day, this is not a real number cruncher.

However, the machine holds it own.

                               Setup
                               -----

This is my setup:

* Suckless dwm window manager
* Suckelss st terminal
* Suckless slstatus status monitor
* Tmux 

                             Daily use
                             ---------

On a typical day, you will find the following on my X201 desktop:

* Emacs, compiled from a recent git pull
* Firefox
* ssh to local shell server, running tmux with irssi, mcabber, and
  some other stuff

The X201 runs these tasks surprisingly well.

Once you start using Emacs, more and more tasks are done in Emacs.
Because of this, e.g., I tend to use Tmux less.

                       Why I prefer the X201
                       ---------------------

I own several laptops, including the much more capable Thinkpad X270.
Still, I prefer to use the X201. There is mainly one reason for this:

The wonderful keyboard of the X201.

This is a classic Thinkpad keyboard. Typing on this keyboard is so nice!

The Trackpoint also works very fine, after I set some lines in .xinitrc.

The keyboard and the trackpoint make a feast of using this small laptop!

Because of the 8 Gb RAM, I can run a virtual machine, using vmd, the
OpenBSD hypervisor. I have done this once, as a kind of proof of
concept. 

For running virtual machines the X270 is a much better choice.

Also, my X270 runs FreeBSD, so it can run jails, something that OpenBSD
does not facilitate.

So, I still boot my X270 on several occasions, but for most of my
every day things, the X201 is the machine I prefer.


Last edited: $Date: 2023/04/28 20:04:31 $