I’m pretty sure the MNT Reform is the closest thing we got to a laptop built on open hardware.

Unfortunately, it is pretty chunky 😅. Thankfully, their upcoming MNT Reform Next has become production-ready recently. So, that’s pretty lovely if you’re willing to be patient.

As noted by others, I’m pretty sure many different solutions exist. But, FWIW, I’ve had good results with DwarFS.

I guess my first question is whether Linux knowledge in general is interchangeable between distros?

Most distros are made up of the same components/building-blocks. Hence, learning to interact with the component/building-block on distro X will benefit you whenever you stumble upon it on distro Y.

And second, more importantly, what are the good resources for learning basic things?

“Basic things” is a broad descriptor 😅. I suppose Linux Journey is pretty neat for learning the ropes. But you’re probably best served by resources/documentation that have purposely been created by the maintainers of your chosen distro.

Like if I want to play games I bought on steam, how can I expect that process to be different?

That depends entirely on the game. For some games, it goes as smooth as butter. For others, you need some tweaking before you get there. For yet others, it’s simply unsalvageable. See https://www.protondb.com/ and https://areweanticheatyet.com/ for more details.

If I want to manage files and folders and extensions and such how does that differ if at all from Windows.

Your Linux experience will mostly be dictated by the so-called Desktop Environment. Hence, the above question can only be meaningfully answered after you’ve decided on that.

I’m coming from specifically windows, but I assume for people coming from Mac OS as well what are the do’s and don’ts that you wouldn’t necessarily think of when switching?

Shortlist:

• Don’t download your apps/software/programs/drivers (or what have you) from the internet browser like you’re used to on Windows. Instead, get it from the repositories of your distro. This is commonly accessed from an app store (or something).

I’m pretty sure it does; as secureblue, an immutable atomic distro that’s hardened by default, required this commit to mitigate it once and for all.

While Bazzite and its atomic brethren do provide some additional protection against attacks, it’s often very overstated 😅. Hence, it’s unsurprising that it doesn’t provide any defense against this assault.

Excellent write-up! Thank you so much for this!

It just so happens to be that Linux is the easiest to make secure

Could you back that up? Thanks in advance!

that will totally not break with every upgrade

While I agree that it’s a lot more brittle than it has any right to be, it hasn’t been that bad in my experience. For example, it only took me 1-2 days after its official release to upgrade to Fedora 44 (and with it, GNOME 50). Out of the 5/6 extensions I had installed, only 1 has broken on me. Arguably, that is one too many. But as GNOME offers a very stable and polished experience otherwise, I suppose this is pretty acceptable.

Unfortunately, I can’t really comment about that specific device. Regardless, I’d reckon the following is worth noting:

• ThinkPads (and to a lesser extent the Dell’s Precision/Latitude line of devices) are (generally-speaking) the best supported laptops on Linux. We can e.g. see this when software like TLP has exclusive features to ThinkPads-only.
• Linux-specific vendors like NovaCustom, Star Labs, System76 and TUXEDO are cool. But, they have to do a lot to catch-up. Some of them don’t even have an entry within ArchWiki’s entry on laptops.
• While not a Linux-first vendor (at least initially), Framework has been picking up a lot of steam. Definitely deserving a mention alongside the others.

Anecdotally, I’ve moved from HP to ThinkPad and there’s a very clear difference. To name one of my many frustrations with HP, my battery died every year or so on Linux. That’s just ridiculous. By contrast, the experience on ThinkPad has been absolutely glorious. It’s clearly meant to offer a first-class Linux experience.