How smooth Is the user experience?

How flawless is the software user experience on MNT hardware compared to using a Linux distro on a typical X86 computers? Will all software runs flawlessly?

Edit:
My use case is very typical. 99% web browsing/YouTube (Firefox), email (web), file sync via Nextcloud, photo management (digiKam), light photo manipulation document scanning/printing (gimp), Libreoffice, GQRX for RTL/SDR radio listening, Light gaming (Steam? GOG?) I’ll have a dedicated gaming computer for heavy gaming. Since MNT is ARM, virtualized Windows might not be very useful due to lack of software.

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“all software”? No, certainly not. Some software requires too much CPU, GPU or RAM to run flawlessly.

You also want to compare it to an X86 computer which means that: running proprietary X86 software might be a hassle.

Can you be a bit more specific about which software you want to run?

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It’s pretty excellent for what it is. An Arm based Linux laptop. For what I use it for (Obsidian, Latex, Web Browsing, Coding) , I’ve had no real trouble that I wouldn’t have come across on my Framework laptop running Linux. No laptop is flawless, even a MacBook was a pain in the ass sometimes, but it’s pretty great once you have it setup.

What is your day to day usage like of your current device?

A few things I am used to running on a typical x86 linux setup doesn’t work on arm right now:
matlab, dropbox, chrome, zoom.
so basically, proprietary software that is is available for linux but only x86.

Except for this the user experience is similar to a typical x86 setup for me.

I know its not perfectly compatible but Octave is pretty close to Matlab depending on your work. Chromium works as well as chrome. I got nothing for dropbox or zoom.

Zoom can be used through the browser (though the interface makes it difficult to discover this), so it may work for you through Chromium or Firefox. For the other two apps I would try box86 or box64, the programs may run ok. Note that performance likely won’t be great for heavy programs under box86/box64 unless you’re on RK3588.

Honestly I have been trying to wean myself from matlab for a long time :slight_smile:

maestral is a dropbox client I have used on the reform and it works fine.

I have used zoom on the browser.

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Maestral is a pretty easy to use replacement for the Dropbox client that allows you to access your Dropbox storage.