Lenovo ThinkPad W541

My third modern (Lenovo) ThinkPad has a new lease on life with a fresh operating system.

I originally purchased the off-lease W541 in November 2018 as a warranty replacement for the T450, which had a bad display. The W541 is a nicer computer overall compared to the one it replaced, with a larger display (15 inch, as opposed to 14 inch) and DVD burner drive.

The machine ran Windows 10 throughout its time in daily service, which was between November 2018 and November 2021. I used the W541 for everything from homework to graphic design and video editing throughout my time in college, using Adobe Creative Cloud software (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Audition and Premiere Pro). However, lack of driver support for the dedicated Nvidia Quadro graphics processor forced the machine into an early partial retirement, as videos exported from Premiere Pro failed to render properly. (That led me to purchase my early 2020 MacBook Pro, which is still my work machine.)

Even after getting the MacBook, I continued to use the W541 for most personal purposes — such as Minecraft, audio editing and watching videos. The W541 continued to serve in that personal capacity until November 2021, when I purchased a M1 Mac mini to completely transition to macOS. (I haven't used Windows at all since, including no interaction with Windows 11.)

The W541 was retired to storage, where it remained lifeless until October 2024. Although I just wanted to grab a couple files off the machine, I would eventually format the Samsung solid state drive (after Windows gave up and failed to cooperate) and install a new operating system — OpenIndiana Hipster. OpenIndiana is the "de facto" open-source descendant of AT&T Unix System V, based on the Illumos base OS.

Like with my Linux Mint machines (MintTin and MintTin II,) I have installed TiMidity++ on the W541 to render MIDI, MOD and other audio files in OpenIndiana. (Unfortunately, I have not been able to get sound hardware to work with OpenIndiana... just one issue I've had compatibility-wise. I export the files in WAV format, which I open typically from my Mac mini.) I have also installed LibreOffice, a full suite of office productivity software very similar to Microsoft Office; GIMP, a raster graphics editor; and Inkscape, a vector graphics editor.

I also used Napp-it to configure the W541 as a network server using the SMB protocol. This allows me to access files from any computer on the network, no flash drives or cloud apps needed. The local version of this website is hosted on said server, with editing taking place on the W541 and Mac mini. The SMB server also works well with TiMidity++, as I can simply drop files I want to render into a folder from my Mac mini, process them, and access the rendered (WAV) file from the Mac mini. (I hope to eventually automate this function.) Ideally in the future I'd like to build a slightly beefier, more powerful custom PC/server running OpenIndiana or OmniOS, another open-source Illumos/SVR4 distro primarily built for servers, as a home server. For now, the W541 will suffice and has been a good "proof of concept."

While OpenIndiana runs pretty smooth on the W541, there are some issues. In addition to the sound problem, the internal Intel Wireless 7260 radio was not supported by OpenIndiana/Illumos, and I could not locate any drivers to get it working. I purchased a travel-size wireless router (a TPLink AC750) that is powered by a USB port on the W541 (the one with charging capabilities) and connected via wired Ethernet as a workaround, which works great. There are some other issues, such as the lack of brightness/contrast controls and occasional "glitches."