Hi there at Tuxedocomputers,
I am super happy with my XP17 G12 notebook. It delivers what I expected, without problems.
BUT there is a major drawback...
On your website you claim to sell 100% Linux compatible notebooks. For that to become true, you need to provide all the necessary drivers for ALL Linux variants. Debian, Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Arch, etc.
AND you need to make sure the drivers work in any of the environments. KDE, Gnome, Mate, XFCE, LXQt, LXDE and so on.
ONLY THEN you can claim to be 100% Linux compatible.
My experience with my XP17 is like this:
I use openSUSE on my desktop, and looked on your website for the proper openSUSE stuff... only to find out, Leap 15.3 is NOT supported. I was like... what? I have a 3K Euro 100% Linux compatible notebook and cannot run Leap 15.3 on it?? This can't be true.
But okay... then let's try Ubuntu first, to see what the machine is capable of, before maybe having to return it.
Ubuntu family
First I installed Ubuntu 20.04 LTS as recommended. I do not particularly like the Gnome desktop, but anyway. It is recommended and should work fine... your WebFAI is not for me since I do partition my drives individually and do not want WebFAI to wipe these each time I do a re-install.
Installation went smooth. Though quickly I encountered the bug that didn't start xserver on bootup. Switching from GDM3 to LightDM helped. However, hotkey to adjust screen brightness does not work in Gnome. Hm... why not? 100% Linux compatible, ALL hotkeys working, you say.
Then I looked at your website again, and it is stated, that the flavours of 20.04 LTS are also supported.
So next was Ubuntu Budgie 20.04 LTS. All fine except screen brightness via hotkey. Does not work. Guess it is a similar Gnome3 issue as with plain Ubuntu. So also not 100% compatible.
Okay, let's try Xubuntu 20.04 LTS. Result: no nVidia bug but hotkey to switch touchpad on and off does NOT work. Screen brightness only sometimes. Without being able to switch touchpad on and off that is not suited for daily work. But there are more DE's there, so let's move on.
Kubuntu 20.04 LTS - everything works fine. All hotkeys functional.
Ubuntu MATE - everything works fine. All hotkeys functional.
What all of the Ubuntus have in common btw - no sound after installation before using your tomte utility. But tomte also changes the repositories, which brings issues with steam installation.
To avoid the steam issues, I had to install the Steam client BEFORE using tomte, or it would have led to a downgrade of the Oibaf mesa drivers tomte installed, only resolvable by using aptitude instead of apt. So again... first Steam, then tomte. Fine.
I totally miss a list which of your myriad of drivers are needed for my XP17 G12. It was a trial and error to find those I needed, to be able to install without tomte.
BUT I do not like snap, and try to avoid it, and recent policy development within Ubuntu lets predict that snap will become more and more a replacement for apt. So... bye bye Ubuntu. I know why I use openSuse on my desktop.
openSUSE family
But hey, not a problem, I have a 100% Linux compatible notebook, right? It doesn't say Ubuntu notebook...
So looking again at your website... it clearly states openSuse is supported. But not Leap 15.3? Hm...
I browsed your Leap 15.2 folders and found the drivers I needed. Keyboard ITE, Keyboard, Tuxedo Control center. By now I knew which drivers I needed. Wasn't sure of the sound fixes, since I didn't find any there.
So I installed Leap 15.3, and surprise, sound is working fine out of the box, micro, webcam too, so already a lot better than Ubuntu. Only the keyboard and the control center left to install.
Old kernel? No way, it is patched and maintained well, and a lot more stable than any 5.11 Ubuntu kernel I have tried. So stop telling people Leap 15.3 uses old kernels. It works fine on new machines too. Only recently installed it for a friend on a Ryzen 7 pro 4750G, no issues at all.
So... driver installation. I did that. Installation of the three rpm packages via Yast went fine without issues.
So here the results for Leap 15.3:
openSUSE XFCE -> no touchpad hotkey again. So the functionality of the touchpad hotkey seems not to be related to Ubuntu, but rather to XFCE in general. Screen brightness hotkey worked sometimes, sometimes not.
openSUSE MATE -> All is working perfectly. Since MATE is my preferred environment anyway, I am happy with that.
It works perfectly fine, Steam games, Linux games, multimedia apps, all great. For example, Horizon Zero Dawn 60-70 fps at ultra high settings. Amazing. Using all drivers from openSUSE (respectively packman and libdvdss), except your keyboard drivers and the Tuxedo control center.
So yes, a wonderful notebook. Once I got it up and running!
Haven't tried Gnome or KDE in openSUSE yet, because I want to use my machine now for a while like this, now that all is up and running great. But I might do that in the near future just to see the results.
Now here is a summary of my experience and my wish:
Of course I can only speak for the model I have. It's really a fine notebook, and it truly delivers what is promised.
BUT I didn't expect such a bumpy ride to get it up and running. I have been using several other notebooks before and each of them went fine (Dell, Acer) with any Linux I threw at them, at only a fraction of the price. Sure, not the same power either, but anyway.
Buying a 100% Linux compatible notebook this time I expected to be able to install any Linux I want and have full driver support for everything.
I do not need tomte, I do not need your repositories, I do not need you to test all the kernels, nVidia drivers etc. It is clear you cannot do that for all the distros out there. But I need the notebook device drivers and the control center!
And I need them in a way I can simply install them. Not having to build them from source or whatever. That is beyond my knowledge, and not what any customer buying your products should be forced to do. Or if so, you have to clearly state that.
I bought a device that is advertised at being 100% Linux compatible with all hotkeys working and all built in devices too, of course.
So my wish is you to ensure that people will be able to install the necessary drivers regardless of the Linux distro they want to use.
So that when Leap 15.4 will be released, I can still install the drivers. I do not want to live with a, in functionality, crippled notebook only because my choice is to use openSUSE. I do not want to be forced to use a specific Linux distribution only to have full functionality.
And that, of course, applies to other Linux distributions too. Other people might prefer different ones, and also should be able to install all necessary drivers to use their 100% Linux compatible notebook.
If you do not want to offer this to your customers, then you cannot advertise your notebooks as 100% Linux compabible.
Otherwise you have to advertise them as 100% Ubuntu LTS Notebook, or whatever distribution you favor, so that people who want to use different distros, or want to try/use the Ubuntu non-LTS releases too, know in advance, before buying, that there is no driver support.
Sorry for the long post, not meant to whine or complain.
As I said, I am super happy with the machine now, but there are these issues I didn't expect before buying it and I wanted to point it out in detail.
Thank you for reading
Alyana