@protosphere

I've found Manjaro a hit for supporting cheapo laptop hardware where other distros failed. Unsure about the Nikon Coolscan 8000 over Firewire.

Interestingly I note the coolscan-modding boffins distribute their firmware updates as a .exe file... https://github.com/kosma/coolscan-mods

A quick websearch suggests someone with a usb coolscan ed-40 got it working in SUSE.

I'd say your best bet is to websearch for terms like Linux and coolscan-8000 and see who seems to have got the thing working.

Searching for SUSE and FireWire suggests that bit is a working combination. https://forums.opensuse.org/t/how-to-configure-firewire-adapter/117914

Heck, I suspect the thinkpad will run most operating systems; you could probably even run #openbsd on it just fine (Bluetooth notwithstanding)... The rate-limiting step will probably always be the coolscan 8000, so I'd focus on finding something that supports that.

If you want a quick experiment, make a bootable USB of a distro that you think might be a go-er, and see if you can getnit running easily via that?

Bon chance!

Hashtags for visibility:
#nikon #coolscan #drivers #linux #manjaro #firewire #coolscan8000