Something to be aware of if you're looking to buy privacy / security specific hardened computing devices:

Avoid those that are running niche flavors of Linux, especially if it's a Linux flavor created by the company. Maintaining a full fledged OS to ensure it remains up to date with security patches and simply with all the latest versions of libraries is no small task.

I've been burned by this several times where a company stopped maintaining their OS and is started breaking more and more software that had newer dependencies.

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Discussion

You still recommend system76?

I'm concerned about them because they haven't done a major release of PopOS in 3 years and my machine is stuck at an update for which I haven't been able to resolve.

Ok, good to know. I plan to upgrade after grant but for now I'm still developing on this broken screen macbook. ๐Ÿ˜…

The updates keep coming but at what point should we panic? I had a similar issue but I fixed it by troubleshooting with Perplexity.

whats the best linux version for that?

linux mint any good?

Yup

Do you have any thoughts on the new Foundation product and their plans to develop and maintain a microkernel OS?

I got started with Linux years ago on macbook 2.1 after Apple stopped supporting it. I wrangled Debian with xfce onto it because it happened to be something I stumbled upon that would breathe a second life into something I could not afford to replace. I wasn't even aware of how durable that setup would prove to be, even years later.

If you like the ease of Ubuntu but want to avoid Snaps / Canonical and be โ€œmore open source โ€œ, I highly recommend Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE). All the good without Canonical in the supply chain.