My ThinkPad Setup

My ThinkPad Setup

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Read Time: 6 minutes

Hayden Hanson Hayden Hanson

The Last Great ThinkPad.

Many say that the T480 is the last great ThinkPad model. The number of useful ports, compatability with linux, the TrackPoint and upgradability are all reasons why I agree! In this post I go over the software I run on mine.

System Overview

  • OS: Arch Linux
  • Encryption: LUKS
  • DE: Hyprland (Wayland)
  • Bar: Waybar
  • Shell: zsh
  • Terminal: Alacritty
  • Editor: nvim
  • Browser: Firefox (Hardened)

Keybinds

I switch between workspaces with the SUPERKEY followed by a number:

$mainMod = SUPER

# Switch workspaces with SUPER + [0-9]
bind = $mainMod, 1, workspace, 1
bind = $mainMod, 2, workspace, 2
bind = $mainMod, 3, workspace, 3
bind = $mainMod, 4, workspace, 4
bind = $mainMod, 5, workspace, 5
bind = $mainMod, 6, workspace, 6
bind = $mainMod, 7, workspace, 7
bind = $mainMod, 8, workspace, 8
bind = $mainMod, 9, workspace, 9
bind = $mainMod, 0, workspace, 10

I toggle waybar with the following hyprland configuration below. I really just use it to check my battery, I think it’s cleaner without it enabled.

bind = $CONTROL, ESCAPE, exec, killall waybar || waybar # toggle waybar

My full hyprland configuration can be found here.

Development Workflow

Workspace 1: Browser

Browser

With this setup, no matter where I am, I press SUPER 1 to go to my browser.

Workspace 2: Terminal + TMUX

Similarly, SUPER 2 always takes me to my home base. My terminal running tmux with organized sessions. I use my terminal for almost everything nowadays, if there is a TUI for it, I try to use it.

Terminal

I use Neovim as my only text editor. I made the switch from VS Code about a year ago and have never looked back. My configuration uses lazy.nvim and is set up to be fully modular. You can check it out here.

My tmux configuration can also be found here. It was inspired by this video.

tmux

Workspace 3: Music

I use this Spotify TUI, it is fantastic and the default keybindings are great.

Spotify

Workspaces 4-9: Extras (rofi, slack, etc..)

Rofi

Hardware

I am using the ThinkPad T480 14.0” FHD Touchscreen with an i5-8350U CPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM and a fingerprint reader. I got it refurbished from Amazon for around $200.

The only problem when I got it was that the battery life was horrible. I upgraded the external battery to a 72WH battery to fix this and it’s been great since!