My wife has an old Lenovo i5 thinkpad that we would like to use again with linux, before buying a new computer. I was wondering if there is a tool that I can input the model and stats of the device and it will output a few suggested distros for it.
It is the X1 Carbon 20BT with the i5-5300U Processor, it has 8gb ram. https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd100509-overview-for-thinkpad-x1-carbon-type-20bs-20bt
Update: I have installed mint xfce but am downloading cinnamon and switching to that.
Linux isn’t really like that where one distro is better for certain hardware than others (the one exception being the few distros that avoid proprietary drivers like Debian). It’s really more of a personal preference. If you’re not sure, start with something easy for beginners like Mint or Kubuntu.
There are differences with hardware support. For example my keyboard backlight isn’t supported in all distros equally. From what I know so far, I suspect this has to do with kernel version and desktop environment.
Getting hardware to work that needs proprietary firmware, for example Broadcom wifi and Bluetooth, can involve several steps like adding a new repository, installing packages, and running a program, or two clicks in the UI.