Mine just says I might like brands I’ve bought repeatedly and might own items I’ve bought accessories for.

I guess then I would add to my advice that people should do a quick check to see whether others are having good results with a given model before purchase. I thought we were past that with Thinkpads.

I’m surprised to read that; I would have expected substandard build quality, not problems with Linux.

My newer model can kernel panic as well as any model!

I had a T470 previously, and the mechanical build quality and materials of the P14s III are superior.

There’s a reason Linux on a Thinkpad is a meme.

You haven’t said much concrete about your requirements, use case, or budget, so I don’t have a recommendation much beyond whatever Thinkpad meets your requirements. The “serious” models in the T, P, and X series tend to be preferable to the others.

I love mine!

This seems to be a common position, and I share much of it. I usually don’t want to do anything all that fancy on my phone, but once in a while, some edge case comes up where what I want and what the manufacturer or OS vendor has decided to approve differ.

In those situations, I insist on having the last word.

I’m surprised that so many technically-adept people find this acceptable.

Not necessarily the bit about compiling software directly on the phone; I can do that and I don’t, but the part where Apple has the last word on what apps can exist (yes, I know there are some very narrow escape hatches).

1Password is the best they could come up with when “best” is measured in dollars contributed.

It’s probably not made up because 1Password is pre-installed and bound to a hotkey in Omarchy. Linux users making informed decisions about what to use for password management probably don’t pick 1Password most of the time due to its terrible security record.

Why is such a piece of software still allowed in managers?

Linux package repositories are not necessarily curated for software quality. Some are. Some aren’t, and that’s intentional.

Most of them are going to include Evolution though since it’s the official mail app for Gnome. The criticism is more reasonably directed at Evolution itself rather than distribution maintainers. Decent spam filtering with a low out of the box false-positive rate is a reasonable expectation from a “batteries included” mail client.

Using a big tech option for something like a password manager is a bad idea in general. Eggs, baskets, etc…

I am surprised. I’ve run both KDE and Gnome on a Surface Go 2 (8100Y), which is either slower or barely faster depending on which CPU you have, and I’ve had no UI lag.

My solution in the same situation is to use Gnome. I strongly prefer KDE on a desktop/laptop, but Gnome is an outstanding tablet UI and KDE isn’t… except that Gnome’s onscreen keyboard is crap.

That means if Google’s verification system gets widely adopted, browsing the web could become a headache.

Using a phone to scan a QR code in order to access a website on my desktop is a headache even if it has no dependencies in particular.

Yes, it’s possible. Some things might be challenging, like keeping the system up to date without the user having access to an app repository, but it’s possible e.g. by running a script as a cron job.

Whether it’s a good idea is harder to say. Linux distributions for phones are not especially mature and polished compared to desktop Linux. You might get better advice if you explain why you want to do this and who the intended user is.

I suppose I should clarify that I could write a full-length article about it on something else.

I’ve been running Gnome on a Surface for a while. It’s an outstanding tablet UI except for its onscreen keyboard. The keyboard is terrible. I could write a full-length article about how terrible the keyboard is, but here are a few quick complaints:

• No long-press layer; most other OSKs have a secondary layer to get numbers and punctuation via long-press
• No way to move the cursor; it’s drag on the spacebar for most OSKs
• No way to add the number row to the default layer; numbers always require tapping a key to activate the number layer
• No arrow or modifier keys by default; they show up in Gnome Console, but I might use a different terminal app or need them elsewhere
• No good way to switch to a third-party keyboard system-wide; even iOS has that now

An app that could be a website and wants a huge intrusive set of permissions? So just like every corporate social media thing ever.

• Google has announced that a workflow for advanced users to install whatever they want will remain, but hasn’t published details. Many people don’t entirely trust them about this.
• Third-party Android builds like LineageOS won’t be affected. These need a device with an unlockable bootloader. They can run any Android app that doesn’t intentionally sabotage them (some banking apps do this).
• Linux distributions for phones exist, and can run Android apps via Waydroid. This provides the most freedom for the user, but the highest effort. This is mainly suited for Linux hobbyists right now.

I’ve used several iterations of Gnome, several iterations of KDE, Mate, Cinnamon, Hyprland, XFCE, LXDE, Fluxbox, and several other things I can’t be bothered to remember. I can be productive on any of them given some time to set them up.

I do have preferences though, and I like KDE on a laptop/desktop and Gnome on a tablet. I just wish Gnome would do something about its horrid onscreen keyboard.