Linux Mint nowadays supports release upgrades, but you have to follow their blog to know when a new major Mint release is out and you have to manually install mintupgrade and do the upgrade.

So it is definitely not caused by technical constraints, as Mint has implemented the difficult part (providing and testing an upgrade path) already. Notifying the user about a new release upgrade shouldn't be too difficult? E. g. in the most simple form you could probably preinstall a package that does nothing at first, but receives an update once the next Mint release is out to send a notification to the user to inform about a new Mint release.

When it comes to elementary OS, I think they could support in-place upgrades, as they properly use metapackages (unlike Mint, which marks most packages as manually installed and doesn't really utilise automatically installed packages and metapackages in a way that you would expect on a Ubuntu-based distro), but they probably don't want to allocate / don't have the resources to test an official upgrade path.

But again, I don't understand why it is so difficult for elementary OS to at least provide a simple notification to the user that a new version is out. Even if the users have to reinstall, it is critical to inform them that their OS is about to become end of life. You know, people do things like online banking on their computers ...

It's the first thing I check with every distribution and if it doesn't have an EOL / upgrade notification, it is immediately out.

Outside of that the toolkit's file picker is used, as the system doesn't seem to provide one (via the portal), so the only reasonable fallback is to show the file picker that you know is there, which is the one of the application's toolkit.

I actually like to use Comic Neue for personal stuff. https://comicneue.com/

Ubuntu is another nice font, which I like to use for more serious documents. https://design.ubuntu.com/font

For system fonts I use whatever comes preinstalled. I don't modify the font defaults in any way.

Innovation or regression?

Innovation doesn't necessarily mean that all past functionality needs to be carried over. Actually innovation often means that past technology becomes obsolete and gets replaced with something new.

Gnome used to have optional desktop icons. They removed them.

They removed them because with GNOME Shell those icons no longer made sense. There was no longer a concept of dragging apps from a panel menu to a desktop, instead apps were now pinned from the fullscreen app overview to the dash.

Since the code was no longer used by the default GNOME experience, it became unmaintained and eventually got removed.

Nowadays switching to Windows isn't really an option for me anymore, as I am just too invested into the Linux ecosystem.

It's always funny hearing about how difficult it is to switch from Windows to Linux, because you have to relearn how to use a computer and all your favourite software isn't available.

But for me it's the same, but the other way around! I would have to relearn how to document my installation (scripts, etc.), what program to use for which task or how to force a game onto a certain monitor (the last time I looked into this, the only way on Windows was switching the primary monitor before starting said game; on Linux I can just tell KWin how to make the program behave).

It would be a lot of work with little or no benefit to me and I'm not even sure if all my hardware is compatible with Windows, as I did all my software and hardware purchases in the last decade with only Linux in mind and I usually didn't purchase something if the manufacturer offered no support for Linux (money talks).

For me the issue is "importing and exporting". I just don't want to have a note-taking software anymore where I can't just read or edit plain text files with any text editor I happen to have.

I know I can export my notes from Joplin into markdown, but when I last tried it, I wasn't satisfied with the result. I don't remember it anymore, but exporting either didn't preserve the file hierarchy, caused issues with linked images or I had to do something else with the markdown files.

I also didn't like that Joplin had to sync with a local folder instead of just using the files directly. Overall it was just too complex for what I need (i. e. a glorified text editor).

But I don't want to discourage anyone from using Joplin. Different people simply have different needs and Joplin is free to use so one should try it out and see for themselves. ;)

Any source for that claim?

At least the Fairphone 3 and 4 use public test keys in production:

• https://twitter.com/GrapheneOS/status/1546224158769659904
• https://forum.fairphone.com/t/bootloader-avb-keys-used-in-roms-for-fairphone-3-4/83448/11
• https://web.archive.org/web/2if_/https://www.reddit.com/r/GrapheneOS/comments/10b5x4n/comment/j67pbny/

Seems like at least the Fairphone 5 finally uses production keys: https://forum.fairphone.com/t/avb-keys-used-in-roms-for-fairphone-5/100314

This is a Yoga exclusive problem due to its non conventional form and function.

That's the only form factor that's relevant to me, so that's what I evaluate. Other ThinkPads and laptops don't matter to me.

The Linux hardware support for Bluetooth, WiFi and other stuff is far superior to any other mainstream laptop maker.

How? They use the same Intel/Broadcom/Realtek chips as everyone else.

MILSPEC-810G certification

If this is something you require, ok. But that's not something I value at all. I haven't dropped a laptop yet and don't need any certifications.

What I see is a lot of plastic cracking and breaking off with the X-series tablets (own an X201t and owned multiple X230t in the past) and new laptops starting to creak after mostly sitting on a desk for a couple of months. So overall I don't think the build quality is anything special and I believe there are laptops for the same price that hold up as well or better over time. But it isn't terrible either, it is just ok in my opinion.

Edit: I have figured you out, you donkey, downvoting every comment I make on my account. Go touch grass and snip your internet cable with a scissor. And maybe eat some shit and get diarrhea too.

I don't think I have downvoted a single comment from you, at least not in this thread.

the TrackPoint

is nice and I prefer it to touchpads. But I don't value it enough to still prioritise ThinkPads over other brands.

the keyboard

is no longer replaceable without disassembling the entire laptop (since the L13 Yoga Gen2). One of the things that made me prefer ThinkPads over the rest.

The typing experience is decent, but I could type just fine on other laptops as well.

Linux friendliness

In which way is a ThinkPad more Linux-friendly than others?

I mean, I can't even use all the hardware I bought on Linux, as the fingerprint reader doesn't have any Linux support, whereas older ThinkPads (up to the Yoga 460) had a fingerprint reader that worked great on Linux. I also haven't received a single UEFI update on Linux through fwupd (I use Fedora if that matters).

I had an inexpensive Acer non-convertible laptop (bought without an OS from the factory) and a HP ENVY x360 (bought for its beefier AMD hardware, but eventually returned after attempts to fix the faulty digitizer failed multiple times) and Linux ran just fine on them as well.

officially allowed user repairability

I agree that it still is an advantage that Lenovo offers HMMs and spare parts.

But if I need to disassemble the entire laptop (which is something I really want to avoid) to replace a keyboard or most components are soldered, a hardware maintenance manual for ThinkPads is of much less value to me than it used to be.

durability superior quality

In which way are ThinkPads "superior quality" or "durable"?

why does it exist

As far as I understand it, it has been created to port the official client over to a newer target SDK and to ship those changes quicker to the end-user before all features of the main client have been ported to the newer target SDK. One of the reasons stated was having an official F-Droid client as quickly as possible that installs without a warning message.

It seems to be unclear if F-Droid Basic as an F-Droid client with a reduced feature set will continue to exist after the main client has been modernised.

also, why not use Droid-ify or similar

Last time I looked only Neo Store supported automatic unattended app updates. As soon as F-Droid Basic came out, I switched to it from Neo Store. I didn't really like Neo Store's UI and in general I prefer official apps from projects rather than third-party apps.

it has way more repos built in? Molly, Session, IzzyOnDroid, Newpipe, etc are defaults in droid-ify even if they are not enabled by default

I only use the F-Droid repo, so that's not a selling point for me. ;)