I was just using a 2012 X230 running Arch and it's plenty snappy on the command line or even running an electron based editor (or as good as such a thing can be)
There was no mention of what distribution of linux, just "modern" whatever that means. If the person installs the lastest testversion of some distribution that tries to jam everything in there but does not have actual grapics drivers for the right card, it will be very sluggish. In the meantime my raspberry pi has no problems whatsoever with the latest linux.
