Hey SOLUS team and lovers of climbing up the distrowatch ladder!

It keeps happening more and more often:
Reading all those posts here and on Reddit about screen tearing, installation bugs, dGPUs by Nvidia or AMD and problems with switching between the GPUs, black screens after rebooting and whatnot I feel extremely grateful NOT to have all those problems:

I have been using a Thinkpad W530 for years, solid machine, great with a lot of Linux systems (confession: distro hopper until I got to know SOLUS), my computer in general great as most Thinkpads are with Linux.
A few weeks ago the motherboard of my W530 died, wouldn't come back to life, I did try. So I ordered a used motherboard to replace the dead one (it had even slightly better specs than my old motherboard).
Then I got my Thinkpad T430-i7-FHD out that I keep in case my kids need a replacement computer at university or school.
Popped the SOLUS SSD from my W530 in, started the machine and almost shed a few tears:
The installation and all data was there, working as if it had never been in any other machine!
When the "new" motherboard arrived two days ago I got the HMM for the W530 out and started dismantling my good ol' laptop step by step. Put the "new" motherboard in, got all parts back to where they belonged. Cross-checked with the HMM a couple of times to be sure.
3-4 hours and a few cups of strong tea later the deed was done:
I started my W530 with the SSD from my T430 and had a working laptop again, fan spinning like crazy and a BIOS from 2012!
To update that it took me a few times until the computer accepted the .iso file from Lenovo.
Yet, the update then went through without a glitch, and when I restarted the machine there was hardly a hum or a breeze from the fan to be noticed - motherboard and screen and all hardware working absolutely fine!
Now the BIOS of my computer is from September 2019, the fan hardly ever comes on and if it does I can hardly hear it, bluetooth, wifi, LAN, keyboard, CPU, GPU - it's all working again.
And my SOLUS installation is back where it all started and hasn't complained. Not once.
I can just keep using the system as if there had never been a problem.

I know, you might think "What's that got to do with the OS? It's just hardware you're talking about!"
But my point is:
SOLUS is really solid, it just works, it can handle hardware without problems (now I know why Linux users love Thinkpads so much!), it is damn well supported and just really well put together. I love it!

And therefore I would just like to say THANK YOU, GUYS, FOR YOUR GREAT WORK and all the effort that goes into supporting us everyday users every day!

I have only one small problem with SOLUS:
You have demotivated me to use or just try out other Linux systems on my everyday work computer, you have demotivated me to hop! The urge has gone!

Thank you! SOLUS is really great fun to use and a fantastic, solid system to work with!

SOLUSfiddler
Germany

Hey, another Thinkpad fan who uses Solus ! Welcome ! 😀
I'd like to know how you flashed the BIOS without Windows, and what the benefits are...
Thank you !

    Bouquins
    Hi there!
    You visit Lenovo's website and search for the section where they offer downloads of drivers and update software for BIOSs - depending on your location it's something like
    https://support.lenovo.com/ > resources > drivers and software > downloads
    You enter your Thinkpad's model no. and get to a page where you can select the component you're looking for, there select BIOS, then look for "BIOS Update (Utility & Bootable CD)".
    It says that the software on offer is for Windows but that's rubbish - I haven't been using Windows for years and the BIOS update still works!
    Then you select "BIOS Update (Bootable CD)" and click on the download icon on the right.
    You download the .iso file there, then burn it onto a CD (as if it were an OS installation file) - USB flash drives didn't work on my machine, heaven knows why, so use a CD.
    I'm sure that if your computer hasn't got an optical drive you can still update using a USB flash drive, just try it out.
    You put that CD in your CD/DVD drive and restart the computer.
    Interrupt the boot process to get into the BIOS, select Boot, then change the order of booting devices so that your CD/DVD drive is at the top of the list.
    Save and reboot.
    Follow the instructions on the screen and your done!

    The benefits are that although you may have a rather old computer you can still eliminate problems that it might have. In my case after installing the "new" motherboard the computer would start alright but the fan was extremely loud and working really hard.
    After the BIOS update it now almost never starts spinning, and if it does I can hardly hear it. Fantastic!
    So, what can I say?
    The whole process is really simple (I'm by far not a technical kinda guy) and definitely worth it!
    Good luck if you want to have a go!

    SOLUSfiddler

      I will also vouch for solus and ibm compatibility.
      I've have installed solus on three older desktop Lenovo (IBM) thinkcentres...solus and this line go together very well. Hardware or firmware compatibility problems? Never once.