Google has had this for a decade or so as well. The new part is that they're using Gemini for it now... so 10% more hallucinated free time slots...

>ARM is probably the future. But I won't tough another ARM tablet unless it has UEFI or u-boot. And the chip vendor's support absolutely has to be upstream before considering it. Else you will be stuck on some old distro and it will be a real struggle to upgrade.

Agree 100%. There's a disturbing lack of realization of this fact in the official forum for this tablet... people are focused on requesting luxury features such as built in cellular instead of making sure the base is solid.

Maybe we'll get some decent dumb displays out of it - that would be a welcome change. All I really want in a TV is a performant display with some decent HDMI (and if possible Displayport) connectivity.

Tweaks is installed by default even on the very conservative Debian.

You can probably also use gsettings or dconf editor - it's not hidden, just not exposed to end users... as someone who recommends Gnome based distros to friends and family, I'm pretty happy with the fact that my 86 year old father won't accidentally activate focus-follows-mouse and then call me to tell me his mouse is broken and/or cursed.

Of course it gives you that option. Just activate it in Gnome Tweaks. You have the choice between:

Click to Focus
Focus on Hover
Focus Follows Mouse

It's because every time IC outside of the tech realm tries to branch out past Excel they end up with another external consultant to feed... after a while it just becomes easier to bodge everything in Excel than listen to yet another 15 marketing pitches and then onboard a new consultant they didn't really want in the first place.

If you're lucky to be at least somewhat technically minded you can learn to use Python, sqlite databases and other stuff you can run completely locally without a lot of external IT support. Everything else is just too much overhead for someone who's main job isn't all too tech related...

It's not as easy as you make it sound, unfortunately. Sure, the hardware is capable, but the usage patterns are so new that UX expectations will be all over the place.

On the one hand, I'd want a full desktop experience (Vanilla Debian with Gnome, preferably) when docked... on the other hand, I'd want full continuity and access to the apps I just had open in phone mode, in addition to full desktop versions of those apps when applicable. The browser is one case where the degree of integration will likely be tricky, if only because every user has a different expectation.

Alternatively I guess I could live with what amounts to a full VM container for the desktop side, fully decoupled from the phone side, but I highly doubt the general user base would go for that.

The current build of Android 16 on my Pixel 8 Pro has a desktop mode with windowing support, but it's very much just Android apps in a clunky basic window manager - Firefox is basically unusable (zoom settings, mobile sites by default etc.). It does work well as an RDP client at least, which is what I've been using it for.

>It won't take long, but really ...is anyone really that desperate to use Windows ?

I'm kinda desperate to keep my 85 year old father on Windows 10 rather than moving him over to Windows 11 or Linux.

I've already set up a new laptop with Debian Trixie for him that looks 99% like his Windows 10 setup, and I'll bring that to him later this year when I next visit, but I see about a 50% chance that he won't like it or feel overwhelmed by the remaining differences and will want to go back to Windows 10. And I expect Windows 11 would be even worse in terms of UI changes etc.

Why buy an X1C then? If you want ports, buy a P16 and be done with it. Don't buy the device where one of the main feature is thinness (which comes with an inherent lack of ports) and then complain about the lack of ports... and it's not like there aren't other compromises between those two extremes.

If you need to plug that many peripherals into your laptop, you purchased the wrong laptop. I get wanting a full sized keyboard and mouse at your desk, but that issue has long been solved with docking stations.

I would not purchase a laptop I'm not comfortable typing/mousing on, especially away from my desk...

There are a bunch of different models unfortunately. Some are crap for certain purposes - if your work issued you a workstation when you'd rather have a thin'n'light, or they gave you one of the cheapo models (which unfortunately do also exist - another thing that Apple does better), then you either got one of the crap ones or something that doesn't suit your preferences. Heavy, SLOW and loud points to cheapo rather than workstation...

That said, if you want a decent keyboard layout, there's no real alternative to a T/X/P series these days - proper arrow keys with PgDnPgUp, physical home/end keys, a right-ctrl key... The newer models have standard Fn placement btw.

It's hilarious how bad the actual products are for the amount of money they're spending on "talent".

But these problems generally aren't solved just "on the ground" - you need a chain of solid people all the way from the person implementing the change/feature/fix up to the person making the decisoin to implement, including all the support personnel. Dev/Eng., PMs, testers, dept. head, etc. - everyone involved needs to be competent and at least somewhat see the big picutre - that's when we get a cohesive end product that works well.

>You seem to have made my point for me. In response to saying older Linux is overly complex, I was pointed to Nano. When I performed a search for basic Nano use, the first results launched immediately into various options like what I cited. At no point did either source mention a distinction between terminal based applications and GUI based ones in the context of Linux.

YOU are the one who brought up setting a default text editor in Windows using the GUI context menu after bringing up setting nano as a default text editor. YOU'RE THE ONE who conflated GUI and terminal applications in a completely nonsensical way.

I'm starting to feel like you're being obtuse on purpose in order to get a rise out of people. Your excuse of distinguishing between "modern noob distros" and older distros makes no sense in this context - none of the older distros required you to assign a default text editor using SystemD services either.

You've obviously used Linux for a long time and are aware that none of what you've posted is relevant to someone who wants to use Linux as a productive tool for work or play. Your active effort to throw in irrelevant jargon, GPT gibberish and generally nonsensical approaches to long-solved problems tells me that you're not interested in a fact based discussion.

I'm out, have fun with whatever you're trying to do here. :)

>I asked ChatGPT to generate a set of satirical commands that poke fun at how basic tasks that can be complex on Linux. So it wasn't a hallucination, it was intended as satire.

Satire only hits the spot when it's somewhat based in reality.

I think the problem is that your lack of experience with Linux is preventing you from recognizing what's funny and what's just incorrect...

>Below are the commands to set Nano as the default editor from geeksforgeeks, and they're real. In Windows this can be accomplished by right clicking a text file, selecting properties, and pushing the "change default program" button.

Here again... why would you set a TERMINAL text editor like Nano to be your default GUI based text editor? Your lack of understanding is what's holding you back. A terminal text editor is invoked with a TERMINAL command directly. There are no defaults to set.

Setting a default text GUI text editor on most LInux distributions works just like it has on WIndows for the last 20 years - right click on the file and click "Open with...". Then select the program you want and check the "Open with this application by default" button.

Let's go with the usual car analogy: You're going on about the horrors of availability of charging stations and range anxiety, but we're not even talking about electric cars. Hell, we're talking about a shopping cart.

Linux battery life is only good if you pick the right hardware. Intel devices with iGPU are pretty close, as are SOME AMD devices as long as you stay away from video (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/mesa/mesa/-/issues/10223).

In practice, though, if you don't cherry-pick your hardware for Linux power consumption, that MacBook willl run far longer on a charge. I'm currently stitting in front of a P14s with the 500 nit 4k touchscreen and an AMD 6850U - at full brightness it idles at about 10W, which means it'll give me about 4-5h of battery life if I'm browsing mostly static websites. The Intel based devices in my stable with low-power FullHD(+) screens idle at ~5W on max brightness (albeit 300 and 400 nits respectively) and provide easily double the battery life. Indoors with lower brightness I've often hit 15 hours with my X390 before needing some sleep...