Comment by theteapot
5 hours ago
> I don't think that ARM Laptops have a chance in Linux land as long as each model requires stuff like a custom DT.
Why? In theory the UEFI firmware can pass Linux a devicetree. Not much different to different laptops having different ACPI tables.
People in the thread who have actual experience on actual hardware and software are telling you how things actually work, not some farcical idea of how it theoretically works.
Well, in theory, I don't even care. I want to download an ISO from randomdistro.org and boot it.
In theory. This up to the manufacturers and they're not doing that, so it's quite different from non-ARM laptops, where this is basically standardized.
It's not necessarily any better on Windows. I've worked with Qualcomm based laptops that wouldn't work without a bespoke Windows image from the manufacturer. I also had one where the "generic" ARM Windows image wouldn't work with it even though it should've and the manufacturer never provided a bespoke image.
Even the Surface Pro doesn't work well with the generic image. I had to go get the Surface Recovery one to get it work enough to go through the install because there was no support for the touch screen or the official Surface keyboard on the generic one.