We will be moving Virgo laptop PCB design to this public, GPLv3 licensed project: https://github.com/system76/virgo/. This will be the most open, modern x86 motherboard design I know of.
Pop is my new go to distro. Even without their own DE, the tweaks to gnome are really well considered and I don't spend an hour unfucking the default environment.
I just don't give it a go sooner because I don't really like gnome đ too many things that work differently from what I expect, and too many things I take for granted requires plugins and extensions. From what I've seen, Cosmic is shaping up really well though.
I was on Pop for a while, if I was still using an Nvidia card I would still be on Pop. Their built in support/installer is just so convenient and seamless for the most part.
Nvidia is just such a pain on Linux. Like if it works then great, but I have had just so many minor problems in the past.
My Nvidia card is essentially just a backup now in my server in case I need video output for a terminal.