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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I have not fully understood the meaning or significance of these news and the content of this article. I have a Tuxedo laptop, and for now I am happy with Tuxedo OS. But I am of course interested in the ability to change distro at some point.
Am I understanding it correctly that I will have a very hard time doing so without patching the kernel myself to ensure proper hardware support? And even then it will be difficult?
No, this is mainly about power profiles and things like changing the colour of the keyboard lights, details that usually dont work anyway on laptops. Or at least it didnt work on the ones I had.
The rest of that blog post summaries with a lot more technical knowledge than I will probably ever have the reason why I chose not to go with Tuxedo when I switched to a Linux laptop, after 35 years being an Apple user.
Back then, I had no idea about upstream, sharing of source code or those tech stuff mentioned in the blog post. I'm no dev, I am barely interested in my computer as a 50+ user that was looking for a laptop I could fix/upgrade (I decided I was done with Apple the day I realized all their machines were no more fixable/upgrdable), a machine I would truly and fully own.
Since I was interested in two of Tuxedo's machines but not at all in their own version of Linux, I started digging around their website to find more info about using their laptops and drivers/apps with any other distro and I ended up with more confusion and questions than I had to begin with. Once again, that's coming from a non-expert user, no doubt someone else would have had better results, but still not the best experience.
Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure Tuxedo makes a nice OS that does its job well, it's just that I did not care about it. I already knew which distro I wanted to use and it was not theirs.
So, since I could not understand enough I gave up on their laptop altogether and simply purchased a used PC laptop I knew would be working fine with Linux and installed my distro of choice on it. So far, I have zero regrets even though I would have liked to buy one of those Tuxedo machines with their great/bright screen ;)
I have a tuxedo laptop and I put a different OS on it, works just fine. You even get support. I didnt even notice that the power profiles didnt work until I read this blog post.
Good to know! I mean, their WebFAI-installer does support installation of other distros as well, so I would imagine it should work better than I originally feared after reading the latest news.
I got my laptop from system76; but I think it will be tuxedo next time
Have you actually read the article? It mostly lists problems and reasons not to get a Tuxedo laptop. I'd advise to go for a Framework machine instead, they actually have good Linux support and do not require custom software written in Electron...