OP, I am in a similar position and have been giving this some thought recently. The short version is that I bought an ex-corporate fleet Thinkpad T480.

For portable devices I daily-drive a Thinkpad T420 and a Thinkpad X220. Both run Slackware64-current and both have BIOS replaced with Coreboot. As you would expect these work wonderfully with Slackware.

They are now getting long in the tooth, although still usable for basic tasks having had various upgrades. The T420 has an upgraded 1080p screen and a i7-3612 CPU, and is still really nice at the terminal or in Xfce. The X220, a little less so. Both of these show their age for anything where more grunt is required; and like you I am concerned about Intel dropping microcode support.

The T480 was my compromise to get a similar machine that should last many years. The newest Thinkpad that can run Coreboot is currently the T440p (Haswell era) but as I knew I wanted something I needed to compromise on that. I also accepted losing that amazing 7-row keyboard and the Thinklight. The T480 is sometimes called "the last good Thinkpad" as although it lacks those older features, it maintains a level of modularity and the ability for the user to maintain it, plus it has some modern niceties like thunderbolt. More recent machines have seen Lenovo ape Apple too much for my liking so I didn't want anything more recent. The machine works perfectly with Slackware64-current and also FreeBSD 13.0-release.

Interesting vonbiber, didn't know about that one.

Below are the final aspects of the one I now recall : 2012-2014.
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3597
They designed an open source motherboard, ambitious.

Anyone on RC2 getting results with "thinkfan"? I downloaded the newest version from Sourceforge, newer than the SBO's version, edited the Slackbuild, and successfully installed new Thinkfan. The daemon will not start, automatically via /etc/rc.d/rc.thinkfan or manually calling it from rc.thinkfan, complaining about the lack of a proper "/etc/thinkfan.conf" which isn't created by the installation. Maybe I'm just being dense but neither "man thinkfan" nor "man thinkfan.conf" is clear about the syntax of a simple working conf let alone proper level setting. Anyone?

This guy explains how he did it for his T420 and has posted his thinkfan.conf
https://medium.com/@mirul/setting-up...0-aaec5108f75f

Also this config file commented.
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vm.../thinkfan.yaml

There should be a thinkfan.conf.man5 in your installation so you could
Hope that helps

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WoW! Mr vonbiber, Sir. I am deeply indebted to you and your link. Thank you!

Today I'm walking on sunshine. Not only is "thinkfan" working like a charm (my temps are down 30C !!! did I mention !!!!?) Just wow and whew... proper job, but also not only is the 340.108 driver working better than it was, I now have multiple monitors working perfectly. My puny 15.4 inch TFT screen has been complemented and expanded to a Desktop 32 inch 1080P for work and a 42 inch 4K wall mount for play. I'm actually a bit shocked that ancient Quadro FX570M can perform so well. I mean, obviously that old Quadro won't reproduce real HD 4K movies but it surely is one helluva 42 inch Desktop in brilliant colors and definition!

A side issue I hope OP sees has to do with how Slackware v15 is shaping up. I got discouraged enough I made some space alongside Slackware to try other, supposedly more "automatic" distros. The first one I installed was Artix, a non-systemd version of Arch that trumpets "superb hardware discovery". Ummm no it doesn't. It didn't even get IBM's Trackpad right. Trying to install nvidia drivers the approved Pacman way was a joke. It insisted on a series 400x driver, I already knew wouldn't work as even 390x drivers don't but hey maybe they know sumpin' I don't. Yeah... black screen.

I tried Puppy - too old, too basic, and way too much trouble. I didn't even bother trying Pop!OS or any other distro that doesn't create a root account by default since I've already tried those and hated them. Thankfully a Live Environment is commonplace now because I crossed four more off my list just due to lack of support for such old hat hardware and/or how they looked and behaved. Finally I tried OpenSuSe 15.3 and it isn't too bad..... BUT, Slackware 15 even at RC2 is just head and shoulders taller and better. It, too, was a total PITA trying to get decent graphics driver support.

I'm sorry. I do appreciate and respect the hard work the nouveau folks are doing but even on such an old GPU the support and performance is just lacking. I even considered building a 5.4.164 kernel for SuSe since I know the 340x driver will install on that (at least the vanilla code Slackware adheres to) but the flaming hoops one has to jump through just to even begin creating a SuSe compliant kernel from source is just way too much squeeze and too little juice..

Patrick Volkerding, once again for the umpteenth time I'm made aware of your high standards, clear vision and sheer genius at building a distro that does more OOTB than almost any other and that's before one digs in with the devel tools that are installed by freakin default! Patrick, you are indeed THE MAN! Live long and prosper, Brother. A gift will arrive to you shortly.

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Just to clarify in case I was misunderstood - I think Slackware is AWESOME too!!!

BTW I do enjoy praising Slackware when it deserves it, which is very often, but I also don't often miss the chance to bash Microsoft.

I had to install Windows 7, using a different drive, on my T61P, in order to even hope to activate a Verizon Sim Card. After numerous MS Hotfix packs thankfully still available for Win7 on Lenovo's support site (even though they didn't make the T61P) after about a baker's dozen reboots (grrrr!) I finally got to go to Nvidia's site and download their latest and greatest driver for Win7.

Get this! It was really nice that upon rebooting after the official driver installed my second screen, a 1080p Vizio, came to life with no effort from me but cabling and power BUT since Win 7 "sees" both the 15.4 WUXGA 1920x1200 TFT and the Vizio 1080p (1920x1080) TV as "generic PNP Display" neither gets or is even shown as an option full resolition. BOTH monitors show a maximum of 1680x1050 which isn't even close to the correct aspect ratio of the Vizio,. and there are no drivers from either manufacturer OR nvidia options (at least for Win7) I've found that will provide the option for proper resolution, refresh and aspect ratio.

Say what you like about how "red-headed stepchild" Nvidia is for Linux, but in this case the Linux driver is way better than the Win7 driver and Slackware 15 kicks sand in Win7's puny face, despite Win7, IMHO, being the last decent Windows. Once again MS devotion to proprietary non-compete agreements (I seem to recall that's what castrated Win XP-64, too) diminishes their "flagship" OpSys revealing "upgrades" to be mostly cosmetic.

Slackware just ROCKS!

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