One rule of thumb is to be really sure it doesn't have a tn film screen. IPS at least and even those were really bad up until T490 etc. X1 series has better screens, but you cannot upgrade almost anything to those.
I would say OpenBSD is closer to the Slackware idea. You install the system and it works how it was designed. It might not be what you want, but if you are a security-minded C programmer, OpenBSD gives you the full experience out of the box.
It is not for everybody. But if you are in the crowd who consider Slackware, things like fingerprint reader or wifi are not the first things that are important for you.
Get a ThinkPad X230 and go with OpenBSD to get some of that old school unix feeling.
Working system until you need to upgrade something. I feel like the BSD systems are really what you want if a system like Slackware is what interests you. They have a tightly integrated core system with the kernel, and a ports tree to compile software from source with automatic dependency compilation. A lot of ports can be found as pre-compiled binaries.
All this with simple old school unix tools such as tar, cvs and make. All config is text files, everything meticulously documented in man pages. Very easy to upgrade.
Zurückbleiben, bitte!
Just waiting for one that requires you to compile one Monad to define your whole distro. Types all the way.
Then I'm writing a blog post how your Linux distro is a burrito.
The refurbished thinkpads you find are usually three years old after the companies who lease them buy new ones for the users.
You can do a lot of things with a three year old thinkpad...
I would upvote this but you already have 69 upvotes so I leave it as it is.
Nice.
dbg!(1) all the time...
Yes. And I feel sad because I haven't been excited on any other OS for years after learning NixOS. I used to be excited about playing with things like FreeBSD, but now they all feel like something's missing...
Not for everybody, but as a software engineer nix/nixos is blessing.
Exactly this. Having an interest and a hobby to an open source system will make you better in your job and a much more interesting candidate to hire.
Source: started with linux in 1995 as a kid. Never having issues finding great jobs.
Edit: I did not mean being a devops here, but finding an interest in open source software and learning a highly lucrative programming language while going. You can get pretty far with Rust or Go in the modern startups, C or Java in enterprises. Being very good with Linux drives this interest.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/tn-panel-twisted-nematic-definition,5767.html
Old thinkpads let you to save 20 euros to get a TN film panel to your company laptop. Great for bean counters, awful screens to look at. Never buy these, always get an IPS screen.