ZorinOS used to send anonymous pings and the user did not had the option to opt out. https://zorin.com/legal/privacy/before-31-may-2018/ Seems now its an opt in service.

Tried it when I was starting out. But I may have read somewhere that it uses telemetry. So uninstalled later.

No. Lenovo is really good. Try buying on Black Friday or Christmas, they usually have offers. Also Lenovo has ‘Build your own spec’ kind thing for all their models. These are even cheaper. Also if you’re buying through their website, try staying in their cart page before checkout for about 5 mins, sometimes they will give you a small discount coupon, fearing you’re indecisive.

Lenovo is cheaper than ASUS. Also I feel their Linux support is better than Asus’s. Recently installed an EndeavourOS on my friend’s Lenovo, and every single thing is working as expected.

I believe I was on PopOS then. Now I am on EndeavorOS.

I was having problems with NTFS HDDs when I was dual booting. Needing to get into windows for solving them. Then I ditched Windows, reformatted my drives to EXT4 and never looked back.

But now I am using EXT4 with LUKS for encryption.

NTFS reads/writes fine on Linux. But if anything goes wrong then you might need a utility to fix it (Mostly caused by sudden unplugging). If you have the option, I would suggest you format and the media drive in EXT4. Mind you, EXT4 can only be read by Linux systems.

For FOSS I don’t care that much if it has a bad name. But if the website seems sus (like with 8 different trackers), then I am getting out.