Basically the same things happened to my tuxedo also. With the addition of having to change batteries once a year, because it would drop to half it's factory charge, which wasn't really sufficient. I also gave up on them when they wanted so much money for a screen change (which died after about 3-4 years).
I've replaced it with the new framework 13 inch, which so far works well, but I've only had it for 4-5 months. ( well, but not perfect, because the new AMD AI CPU has issues with suspend on linux)
That's a shame, I got a 13 w/ the previous non-AI AMD 7 7840U in April, and it's been rock-solid running Pop_OS. I wondered at the time if I should have waited for the newer CPUs...
Oh? I'd seriously considered buying the 13 w/this AMD CPU and I guess I naively thought it would be ideal. What sort of problems with suspend are you seeing?
I have a T14 Gen 5 AMD. No issues with suspend/resume at all. NixOS, kernel 6.12. The Ryzen AI APUs are fairly new, so it may take a few months for things to settle.
I haven't spent time investigating if my specific setup is the problem, or an actual bug in the drivers, but after I resume from suspend, the btrfs root fs is in a read-only state.
The only solution is to reboot/shutdown, but it takes a long time and there are some scary fs checks running. Luckily no lost data so far. Currently I'm just shutting down the machine every time because it the boot times are quite fast.
Slimbook (Spanish OEM) basically sells the same ODM designs as Tuxedo and is an option. They have a few cobranded (KDE etc) versions that contribute to the development teams.
Otherwise at this point I believe the Framework laptops have pretty solid Linux support and is a good option if you're ok w/ so-so battery life.
While StarLabs has shipped products before, I'd be careful with them. That StarFighter laptop was supposed to ship years ago, and I don't think any have been delivered yet. Here's a Reddit thread [1] from three years ago saying delivery would be in a few months.
The problem with System76 is that Lenovo exists. There isn’t much of a real reason to buy a “standard laptop” like system76 over a higher volume OEM like Lenovo.
With Framework you’re at least getting the extreme modularity and upgradeability as a major differentiator.
But with System76 you’re essentially getting a regular laptop that you could get from any other major brand. You’ll have an easier time getting parts with Lenovo.
Unfortunately I don't know about a good alternative from Europe. I'd probably get a Framework if my device stops working. They seem to work hard at upstreaming things and use Linux standards. They also connected with the GNOME foundation, so there might be some collaboration in the future
https://entroware.com from the UK gets mentioned here and there, but I think they don't do any software development at all, and only repackage OEM laptops.
I am running a tuxedo since 6 years and I am still happy with it. Had to use their support once to replace the cooling assembly because one of the fan bearings started to ger noisy after 5 years of 24/7 use, the replacement was 100 Euros for the whole copper+heatpipe+two fan assembly. The machine is still outperforming many other machines that exist today and the sceeen is one of the best I have seen (OLED).
I've replaced it with the new framework 13 inch, which so far works well, but I've only had it for 4-5 months. ( well, but not perfect, because the new AMD AI CPU has issues with suspend on linux)