I think the target audience here are the FreeBSD users, not the all Unix users. Mind you, installing Linux on Thinkpads is usually hassel-free, but again it's only useful for someone who wants Linux.

Side note: FreeBSD, i3 and X11 aren't the easiest pieces of software to use if you don't want to spend time dealing with configuration files. There are better macOS alternatives for your use-case!

I bring you jolly tidings. You can put an image of, say, Manjaro Linux on a stick, boot it up, answer a few questions about language and keyboard, and have a fully working install on your ThinkPad inside of ten minutes.

Am writing this from such a setup on my TP.

Congrats, now you literally can't switch away from macOS! Thanks for the new T2 chip you can't use native Linux/BSD (anything other than Windows and macOS.)

UEFI is fine booting a third party OS when SecureBoot is disabled BUT the T2 chip blocks accessing the internal storage from those OSs [1][2]

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/a4thsc/the_actual_fu...

[2] https://twitter.com/LinusTech/status/1067232394934083584

It used to be that Mac had better hardware support but after going through all the shit I did with Vega 20 MBP and my USBC LG 5k monitor - forcing me to switch to a beta branch to get support. And the keyboard issues. Mac OS is far from panacea.

No, that's not the reason you're not switching away. That's an _excuse_ not to switch away from a commercial OS by a fat-cat tax-evading patent-bullying contrator-employee-suicide-inducing corporation.