Honestly, the XPS I bought second hand works close enough with kubuntu that I might not mind.
So far I get enough unplugged gas for a worrylesss morning/evening session, with lid movement causing instant sleep/wake and night battery drain of ~6%. Fans stay silent 90% of time, there is sometimes a weird sound on usage like a hdd read but it’s very subtle.
As a plus beyond the software, I get a touchscreen 4k display, larger storage, and disks/battery that can be replaced if it shits the bed. Considering that the device cost me less than one third of the price it’s not a bad deal at all.
Important to say, I tried 5 distros and only Ubuntu managed this. Fedora put fans on full blast, couldn’t wake from lid down and refused to talk to my external monitor, arch had weird scaling issues and popos desktop was working weirdly.
> Important to say, I tried 5 distros and only Ubuntu managed this. Fedora put fans on full blast, couldn’t wake from lid down and refused to talk to my external monitor, arch had weird scaling issues and popos desktop was working weirdly.
That is one of the offputting aspects of the experience, in my opinion. Some machines work better out of the box with Ubuntu (or derivatives), some work better with Fedora, some with Arch, etc. Of course it's possible to isolate what the distro that works best for a machine is doing that makes it that way so it can be applied to your preferred distro, but frankly who has the time for that?
yup. Honestly, I disliked the idea of ubuntu because it seemed they are borderline building their own walled garden, but after learning that my device had a 'developer edition' with manufacturer's support for that distro, I shrugged and went that way.
For the moment I'm trying to avoid an all-or-nothing approach, if I can get to a workflow I enjoy in such a cheap device it's already a great success. It means that I don't have to say yes to apple no matter the deal, and I'm having a daily 'outgarden' experience so that when the time comes that apple's no longer the best option, I'll notice it naturally.
I'd have loved to see the asahi team achieving full support of at least one device, but it doesn't seem to be on the table for the near future.