Hooked the Thunderbolt adapter/cable up from the Linux 11" Air to my LG Ultrafine and set everything to a comfortable resolution. It looks nice and works pretty well – the machine doesn’t seem to be straining.
For whatever reason the Display applet crashes when I set the displays to “Mirror,” which would be the prereq for being able to clamshell, but we’re into “whatevs” territory there. The media keys on this Nuphy 75 don’t register, either, but I bet that’s figure-outable.
Pleased the bear can dance at all, I reckon.
And I’ve sort of answered the question I had, which was “what’s time to value on a Linux laptop as a general productivity machine?”
Easily “under two hours,” from “download the right image” to “install” to “get your stuff on it,” which meant everything from “your basic apps” to “have Emacs working the same on this thing as it does the machine upstairs.” If I felt like it, I could do a full day’s work on this thing.
Biggest “oh, no kidding?” moment: Wireless scans from the little Brother all-in-one in the office “just worked.”
Happy Apple Keynote Day, I guess.