It’s been quite nice as a Debian user (primarily on servers) watching all this play out. On the other hand it’s been infuriating watching the debacle unfold and then the solution has always been to switch to RedHat derivatives and just push the issue further down the road, only to be screwed again.
Not like it’s a real solution since it’s quite unchangeable and forces everything through Tor, but Tails is probably as privacy-oriented as you can get.
Look, we know System76 laptops are based as fuck. I mean, Coreboot, Open source firmware, PopOS, and a fucking open source mobo in the works, just so fucking based....
System 76 laptops are probably a bit better for Linux considering they were built specifically for it. TL;DR: Research the model of computer you’re looking to buy with the distro you want before making the purchase no matter who you’re buying from.
I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about this. In 2018 I bought an Oryx Pro specifically because of this and because at the time JB was advertising them as “machines born to run Linux”. However, this was not the case. The machine would constantly fail to resume from sleep and when it did, the wired network adapter would sometimes stop working until you rebooted the machine. This was on Pop!OS. The wired network adapter issue did not occur on Debian Testing at the time, but at this point I was just doing all the same workarounds on a System76 machine that I would have to do on any other machine, which completely defeated the point of buying a machine “born to run Linux”. I ended up returning the machine despite this meaning that I would lose $1000 AUD in shipping (roughly $500 AUD each way). System76 did refund the cost of the machine as promised though and I appreciated the honesty and professionalism from their support. I believe the network issue was due to a regression in the kernel which had not yet trickled all the way down. To be fair, maybe System76 have ironed these issues out on their new machines.
Don’t buy a machine from a manufacturer because they specifically sell Linux laptops hoping that it means you won’t run in to any issues. Do some research on the model you’re looking to buy for any issues with the distro you want to run and make your decision from there. The Ubuntu computer certifications are really useful here. I believe Ubuntu tested the ThinkPad P52 I bought afterwards and said everything but the fingerprint sensor worked, but to NEVER turn on one of the BIOS options because I would brick the machine, so I knew this before buying the ThinkPad and could make an informed decision.
The one advantage you might get with a Linux manufacturer is that they might be able to help if there is an issue, where-as you might have to hide the fact you run Linux from other manufacturers.
AlmaLinux says Red Hat source changes won’t kill its RHEL-compatible distro (arstechnica.com)
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System76 or Framework laptop?
Look, we know System76 laptops are based as fuck. I mean, Coreboot, Open source firmware, PopOS, and a fucking open source mobo in the works, just so fucking based....