Why, thank you!

But now, I'm confused. Maybe it's because I grew up with Linux; for most of the lifetime of Linux, there was never a device sold running the OS. In fact, there was never a device even intended to be usable with Linux. No, if you wanted a Linux PC, you purchased a PC designed for some other purpose, performed a lobotomy on it, and inserted the Linux OS yourself.

That is my intention here. I'm taking this nice old Nexus 7, lobotomizing it, and installing Mer. I'll probably play with a few different UIs, and maybe throw together something of my own. Eventually, I'll get another mobile device, lobotomize it, and carry on with more Mer goodness.

And, ultimately, I think this is the right way to go. Throughout the 80s and 90s and much of the 2000s, companies like Apple and Microsoft dumped millions (billions?) of dollars into operating systems for PCs, and made a fortune on them. But those OSs (DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows 9x, MacOS earlier than OS X) are all dead and gone now. Linux (and other open Unix-like OSs) continue to move ahead, despite not making a fortune. And while a lot of that is due to their open nature, much is also due to their not being tied to any particular architecture -- various machines come and go, but these OSs continue to adapt to new devices while still being able to run their standard software.

tl;dr: No need to wait for a geek tablet to come out, or to worry about how much geeks squabble with each other; every tablet is a geek tablet, so long as you can get an open OS onto it.