It's probably been 15 years since I've used Linux and Mint seems to be the recommended distro for people who aren't all that familiar with Linux like me, but I didn't know if there was anything I should know with this ThinkPad model that anyone is familiar with. My searching around shows people saying everything from it was painless to install to they had tons of issues and I have no idea how common either one is.
I usually have a look at thinkwiki and the arch wiki. Since they don't have dedicated guides for this model, it usually means it's not supported at all and no one even tried, or it's a smooth ride and there just are no issues. Since it's not a niche product, I'd say it's the latter. And it's an older model without extravagant hardware... it should work fine.