By 'not as bad' it's that you don't need the proprietary firmware for the
graphics portion. Skylake is problematic and the 4.4 kernel is basically the
minimum you need on this particular laptop. There are a lot of 'Linux' shops
shipping broken Skylake systems with various serious problems. We skipped
over Broadwell on some model desktops and laptops because of problems
upstream at Intel. Some Skylake laptops are fine and some are not with the
latest 4.4/4.5 kernels.
I would not recommend Trisquel 7 with an updated kernel on the Adelie.
I would recommend avoiding pretty much anything X86... but there really
aren't any good options at this time. The ARM stuff for example is all
dependent on wifi chips that are proprietary and I think this is such a
critical component for the majority of people as to not being a recommendable
direction even if graphics can be written off as an unnecessary component
that you simply aren't going to use.
We are finishing a prototype. Basically it is finished that is non-x86
that'll hopefully be the start of something better. However we're not talking
about anything as powerful as X86 initially. At best dual-core ARM, 1-2GB
ram, etc. Essentially what you'd be buying into is a prototype system with
free designs that we could then build off more easily with a choice of more
powerful CPUs, 3d accelerated graphics (hold your breath on this still), etc
down the road, as we free'd these components.
