[GTALUG] distro for an old Thinkpad

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Stewart C. Russell <scruss at gmail.com>

| Hi - I've been setting up an old Thinkpad R51 as Protolab's small CNC
| controller. I've been trying to use Debian 8, but it seems not to like
| the Radeon 250M in the machine at *all*. I'm stuck with "an error
| occurred / click here to log out", and no sshd to access the machine
| remotely.

Try booting with the kernel parameter "nomodeset".

Somone suggested that to me yesterday and it worked for me (booting
ubuntu 16.04 on a Windows tablet).  Performance was terrible but
better than a blank screen.

| I realise that this Thinkpad is slower than a Raspberry Pi 3 (I
| benchmarked it)

Really?  That surprises me.  Details?

| Can anyone suggest a light(ish) graphical distro that's user focussed
| and will allow fairly recent packaged apps like Cura and LinuxCNC ...

debian surely has a choice of desktops, including some that would fit
the bill.