In the old days, we all thought nothing of buying a retail Windows laptop, reformatting (or shrinking) the partition, and setting it up with Linux. Outcomes varied, but eventually you could get it working. But how much time did you spend removing an operating system you didn't want just to install the system you did want? When Linux started to reach the mainstream, it became clear the world needed reliable, stable, secure options for Linux users who want to boot their computer into their preferred system without the hassles and complications.

The list of retailers selling pre-built Linux laptops includes giants like Lenovo and Dell, but also includes some smaller vendors who specialize in Linux systems and therefore make Linux the sole focus of their attention. We've reviewed a number of the products in this sector in previous issues of Linux Magazine. Recently we received the TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 16 Gen7 MK1 system [1], which is listed for EUR1,224 at the TUXEDO website.

TUXEDO has been popular in Europe for years, and it is becoming more of a presence within the North American market. Like some of the other Linux specialists, TUXEDO maintains its own Linux distro, which they call TUXEDO OS.

TUXEDO says their InfinityBook MK1 system (Figure 1) is for "content creators, software developers, or business users." The review system runs at 4.6GHz, with 14 processor cores, 31GB of memory, and a Samsung SSD 980 1TB hard drive. Side ports on the ultra-thin InfinityBook include (2) USB A, (1) USB C, an SD card reader, 2-in-1 audio (headphone+mic), and HDMI 2.0, as well as a Kensington lock connection and a Thunderbolt 4 port. An Intel Mesa integrated graphics card works very well for the kind of basic gaming I do. If you're looking for something more, you can upgrade to an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 or buy their "maximum performance" model, which comes with the GeForce RTX 3060.

Figure 1: The InfinityBook Pro 16 Gen7 MK1 is big enough to work on all day, but still very light and easy to carry around.

Ready for Work

I must admit there is a certain joy in booting a system and watching it come up in Linux, without reformatting any drives or working around the UEFI boot secure boot protections. There is even more joy in booting up the TUXEDO system because it boots fast – faster than a Windows system and faster than most Linux alternatives. Some commentators report TUXEDO systems booting in as little as six seconds. In my case, it was more like 16 seconds to the login screen, and then fast completion after entering credentials.

A neutral Linux designed to boot on any hardware must drag along components, features, drivers, and settings you don't really need if you have full knowledge of the hardware. Consequently, a pre-built system like the InfinityBook that delivers hardware and Linux together often comes with better performance and more efficient power usage. The engineers at TUXEDO have prioritized fast boot, and their close knowledge of the hardware allows them to optimize the startup in ways that aren't possible with a generic system.

The InfinityBook MK1 is designed to be light and easy to lug around. It weighs in at only 1.5kg, and it is only 17mm thick. It feels more like a tablet in my laptop case than a full-sized computer with a 16-inch 2560x1600 pixel display.

Software

The review system ships with TUXEDO OS 2, a major upgrade of TUXEDO's in-house operating system. TUXEDO OS 2 is based on Ubuntu with the KDE Plasma 5.27 desktop. The system comes with a standard collection of Linux office tools and desktop utilities, including the LibreOffice suite, the Okular document viewer, and the VLC media player. The default browser is Firefox, and the mail client is Thunderbird. If you're a gamer, you'll want to install the Lutris open gaming platform, which is available in the Tuxedo OS repositories. You'll need to set up the Steam client separately if you want to play Steam games through Lutris.

Of course, the distinguishing features are not the common KDE and Linux tools bundled with the system but TUXEDO's own value-added contributions. The TUXEDO Control Center is a central user interface for managing the hardware environment (Figure 2), and it is one of the best examples of the close coordination between hardware and software. You get a quick dashboard view of CPU speed, system temperature, and fan usage. You can also choose a predefined hardware profile to instantly tailor the system for different use cases. For instance, you can choose a profile for minimum power usage or one "mid-tier performance" profile for office usage. One profile that was close to my heart was the "Quiet" profile. As one who has never liked the noise of computer fans, I would have been delighted with this option in the past, but the fan on the TUXEDO laptop is so quiet that I hardly noticed it. You can also create your own custom hardware profile. The control panel also provides settings for controlling the keyboard backlight, the webcam, the shutdown timer, and hard disk encryption. Of course, there are other ways to do many of the things that the TUXEDO control panel does, but the interface is quite sensible and well designed, and keeping these settings in easy reach is certainly a benefit.

Figure 2: The TUXEDO Control Center lets you stay close to the hardware without leaving the desktop interface.

Another interesting feature built into TUXEDO OS is the Tomte configuration service [2]. The developers call Tomte "a service that automatically recognizes the customer's device and checks for missing drivers and required packages." The system accesses Tomte automatically during the install and at other important moments, but you can also interact manually with Tomte using the tuxedo-tomte terminal command.

Test Drive

The MK1 is a pleasure to work on. The keyboard is easy to use (North American lefties, see the box entitled "Left Shift"). The battery offered up to 10 hours of run time, which means you could theoretically work all day in an airport without having to hunt for an outlet.

Left Shift

When I first got the system, I started making more mistakes than usual when typing. It took me a while to notice the difference in the shift keys. The left shift key is noticeably smaller than the right; as a left-handed person who types on my computer all day, I missed the full-sized left shift. It turns out that the computer I reviewed came with an ISO keyboard, which is common for Europe but not so common where I live in the US. Right-handed people wouldn't notice the difference, but for lefties, the ISO keyboard can take some adjustment [3]. I got used to it after a while and stopped typing so many typos.

Luckily, if you're buying a new computer in Tuxedo's online shop, you can choose the ANSI or ISO keyboard option (Figure 3). Even if you're right handed, you might want to take a moment to consider which keyboard layout you are accustomed to and choose it, rather than floating with the default. The ISO keyboard is used more frequently in Europe and around the rest of the world because it is an international standard and is better for accommodating other languages. ANSI is an American standards organization, and the ANSI layout was created specifically for English.

Figure 3: You can choose the ANSI or default ISO keyboard layout if you purchase online.

I was able to play videos easily and with no hitches. The system had everything I needed, and the picture looked great. The built-in speakers were functional for a movie or occasional YouTube clip, but if you listen to a lot of music tracks, you'll want headphones or external speakers.

The system also performed well for audio recording. I fired up Audacity and found that everything worked without any futzing or reconfiguration – not just for voice recording but for acoustic music on multiple tracks.

The clickpad caused me some confusion at first. It is a very large clickpad that is divided in two halves. You can either use the whole clickpad as one unit, with the left mouse-click on the left half and the right mouse-click on the right half, or you can disable one half and use the other for both the right and left mouse buttons. Once I got used to this feature, I quite liked it. There is no reason why the clickpad needs to be in the dead center of the keyboard – why not put it closer to the hand that uses it? That said, it did take me some time to figure it out. The controls for activating each half, or putting it in a mode where both halves work together, were not well documented, and once in a while, the clickpad would appear to turn itself off unexpectedly. I eventually got it working the way I needed it to. (Tapping twice in the upper corner of the pad activates the half-pad mode.) Once I understood this, I could finally understand the cryptic symbols printed on the top of the clickpad (Figure 4). Cool feature, but a worthy reminder that I was still in the Linux world, where innovation comes first and documentation often follows later. Buying a pre-built system saves you from most of the tinkering, but not all – you still have to tinker a little bit.

Figure 4: Once I figured out what was going on, the hieroglyphics on the clickpad made perfect sense.