PPS: Please at least TRY to read the following (if possible, not just the title) with an open mind and in a spirit of tolerance. It was written in good faith by a Linux user who will be staying on Linux.
PPPS: Among all the mean-spirited downvoting and insults and calumny (hey, this is social media) I actually learned a few useful things from this discussion. Perhaps the highlight was the tip about an obscure crowdfunded project which really fits the bill. Too late this time but I’m hopeful such projects, including Pine and Framework, might be become more available and more affordable in future.
PPPPS: I do not reply to downvoters (after all, you’re declaring you don’t care what I have to say). Or to people who obviously have not read beyond the title. Sorry. My post is very clear and I cannot express what I wrote better. In summary: There is a worsening problem with Linux compatibility on low-end hardware, due to the decline of desktop computing and in particular to the insurgency of ARM and Mediatek. It may hurt to hear it but it’s true and we should care about it. Thanks to those who offered constructive feedback.
I’m frustrated. Once again, I have had to buy a computer I didn’t want in order to stay on Linux.
Some background. Compared to most people in this forum, I am a somewhat normal computer user. That is, I have not touched a mouse in decades, I use a small lightweight low-end laptop (which is not slow on Linux), and I do not take anything to pieces. To be clear, I’m a programmer and a massive FOSS idealist. But I’ve never been interested in hardware, and in this respect I’m a complete normie. Let’s not forget that for most ordinary people, a “computer” these days is the tethered corporate toy in their pocket.
For me this slide away from free personal computing is now getting impossible to ignore.
- 20 years ago I could buy a laptop (a Fujitsu) from a major European electronics retailer which came with a Linux CD - a Linux CD! (Kanotix, a Debian variant).
- In the late 2010s, I had a nice choice of cheap Taiwanese Wintel netbooks. So there was a Windows tax to pay but at least the hardware worked fine.
- 4 years ago, the options were getting thin on the ground. For 400€ I could find only one Linux-compatible X86 laptop, made by Acer. And since I didn’t have a Linux live USB, I had to (fake-) register the thing with Microsoft in order to get access to the damn web.
- Today, there’s almost nothing left. Intel laptops have all but disappeared from the budget aisle, replaced by ARM-powered Chromebooks and, increasingly, big Android tablets with keyboards. Putting non-spyware Linux on these things is often possible, sort of, but it’s a nightmare. You’re back to the 2010 era of ROM-flashing on Android, using repos from random developers and wading through impenetrable forum discussions. It’s a massive PITA. This is not the way computing should be done, and normal users will never do it even if they were capable. It’s hardly secure either.
The geeky suggestion which I can hear coming, “buy a secondhand Thinkpad”, is not a proper solution. It’s a band-aid fix with a timeout (PS: meaning it’s on the way to EOL). Hardware from the likes of Tuxedo and Framework is nice but too heavy (PS: correction, Framework is not heavy) and way too expensive for me. The Pinebook Pro is always out of stock.
And anyway, for years I have wanted to move from a laptop to a convertible tablet (like the Surface or Lenovo’s Yoga and Duet lines) (PS: meaning the form factor pioneered by those models, the cheap options these days are invariably on ARM). It makes so much sense ergonomically and even in terms of maintenance. (Keyboards have moving parts. I have to change my Acer because it has a faulty keyboard which cannot be fixed except professionally at prohibitive cost. Crazy.) But none of these computers are easily compatible with Linux. It’s possible, yes, but hardly simple.
I considered, for a fleeting moment, throwing in the towel. After 20 years.
And then bought yet another laptop, basically the same model as last time except a Chromebook. I know I’ll get an OS I control onto it without too much stress. That’s a relief. But I’m more worried than ever about how this story is going to end.
PS: I should have predicted the bitterness and negativity and cynicism I would provoke simply by sharing my thoughts and feelings in good faith. Social media is absolutely incorrigible. In the meantime I will of course be staying on Linux, as I thought I described.
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https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/configurator/cto/index.html?bundleId=21R3CTO1WWUS1
New Lenovo ThinkPad T14s 2-in-1 Intel (14″). You get a $94 Windows tax deduction when you configure it with Ubuntu.
I’m not really sure what you’re complaining about here. Laptops are too expensive? Yeah, so is everything else. That has nothing to do with Linux. And why would buying a second hand machine be a temporary solution? Laptops are always being phased out and flogged off for cheap. And you can run Linux on pretty much any x86 machine, now and in the foreseeable future.
At this rate there won’t be any left. Did you read what I wrote closely, or just the vibes part?
PS: to be clear, literally all your questions are answered in my post.
No, not all questions were answered in the post. He asked why secondhand laptops were a bandaid solution, and the post only made the claim that it was a bandaid fix, without explanation. They said that businesses will basically always be buying new fleet laptops, and thus there will basically always be secondhand laptops. Why wouldn’t that work?
Secondhand is a band-aid because (1) some people will never buy secondhand and (2), a piece of hardware inevitably has a life expectancy. Seems self-evident to me that these things are a problem if we care about still having FOSS computing in a decade or two.
So long as there are businesses needing laptops and on regular upgrade cycles, I would believe there will still be surplus for us. Let someone else pay the new car tax. I’m buying used until prices improve.
I have used ThinkCentres for a router and Nextcloud setup, a year behind refurb ThinkPad for mobile work, and server parts deal hard drives in my NAS.
As hinted, what I’m looking for is smaller, lighter, fanless, basically a glorified tablet. What lives in the niche occupied by netbooks a decade ago. There are more and more options. But this time the hardware is all but incompatible with Linux.
For slightly more serious hardware your plan is decent. Pretty green too.
Yeah, I’m waiting to see what the ARM based laptops can do in the role as a couch computer. If I were to bet on which laptop now would fit your needs, check out a Pinebook.
Absolutely. Was ready to buy the Pinebook. “Out of stock”. It seems they produce them in unpredictable and insufficient batches which get snapped up before anyone notices they’re on sale. Sigh.
Have you considered the macbook neo, it’s not a Linux machine, but it is probably the cheapest machine that fits the glorified tablet footprint. I don’t understand the draw to something that basic and lightweight, but if it mattered to me I would probably go with that. Otherwise, as others have pointed out, some flavor of Linux will run on just about anything that isn’t ARM at this point, and I wouldn’t be surprised if an old netbook would just work for your use case with a lightweight distro.
I would sooner gnaw off my leg than use a black box of closed-source software made by a company as opaque and rich and powerful as Apple. I don’t doubt that the hardware is very good.
After 20 years. [Of using Linux] But none of these computers are easily compatible with Linux. It’s possible, yes, but hardly simple.
What Linux distro are you using in 2026 that still struggles with hardware driver support for mainline systems from a manufacturer you’ve heard of? Most driver hardship these days stems from putting Linux on locked down or uncommon/ niche hardware. Basically any system you’ve listed will do fine without tinkering, pick the system you want with the features you need, buy it, then install Linux. I bet most things just work out of the box.
Please re-read the paragraph where I describe what is available, on the shelf, in an the same affordable price bracket, now compared to 20 years ago.
PS: inane toxic downvoting does not make facts disappear. My observation was pretty watertight: in the low-end hardware niche, Linux is now significantly less well supported than a decade ago. That should be a problem for everyone here.
You post is long but is not very clear, the commenter above is correct. What exactly is your grievance? That Linux does not support your ancient laptop? Or it does not support the laptops (let’s face it, tablets) that YOU want?
Unfortunately resources are scarce in the Linux community, so labor needs to be allocated where most people are (AKA using hardware from the last ~5-10 years, not 30). And Windows surface tablets are extremely locked down.
I’m sorry that you can’t find people who want to continue supporting hardware so old people get nostalgia when they hear its name (eg. Pentium i586). It seems to me you’re not willing to do it either.
Ultimately you’re reducing to hardware a phenomenon that also involves software. Realistically who can run modern computing operations (such as web browsering) on a laptop with 3-4 GB RAM? The answer is nobody. Not comfortably, at least. Browsers take easily 3GB of RAM with just a few tabs open.
As for all laptops being bulky… this is the consumer preference. I don’t like it either but we can barely fault manufacturers for producing what consumers want to buy. I see this trend on phones as well, for me smaller phones are the best thing but the market moved towards bigger screens, heavier phones. And you want underpowered devices? If you could have a slim and lightweight laptop/tablet, wouldn’t you want it to be as powerful as possible? This doesn’t make any sense from a consumer perspective.
Lastly, if you want whatever machine you buy to last longer, then ironically you should learn a thing or two about hardware so that you can replace parts yourself. You don’t have to become a genius, just follow some steps on YouTube on how to change RAM, add SSDs… and yes, Thinkpads especially older ones are great for this since many parts are non-soldered. Apparently this year they are also launching a new one that is way easier to open up and replace parts with their removable keyboard.
400€ in 2006-money is 600€ today. Starlabs used to have a cheap model, but I guess it’s hard for anyone to be in the budget segment with RAM prices these days. I bought a huawei matebook a few years back for about 600€ - they’re sold with Linux pre-installed in China, but not here. But that means that stuff is well-supported.
In my mind the landscape is quite a bit better than 20 years ago. You’d have to pick and choose a model that worked well then. Chipsets are usually well supported by the time they are in laptops today.
The Microsoft tax has been under pretty heavy NDAs lately, but it wouldn’t surprise me if M$ were paying to be pre-installed. They’re in the data mining business, not operating systems in 2026.
But yes, we’re all still waiting for the year of the Linux desktop.
Chipsets are usually well supported by the time they are in laptops today.
I don’t get where you’re coming from, unless you’re talking exclusively about expensive, heavy, Intel-powered laptops. The cheaper ones are now moving en-masse to ARM and Mediatek, along with the convertible tablets that are replacing them. All this stuff (and there’s lots of it) is all but incompatible with Linux.
I’m coming from the past, back when the distribution came on two HD diskettes named Linux 0.99b. It was a gradual change to come to the point where you could just assume that you’d have a good time on Linux. I guess static kernel modules was the starting point, and even then it took years. Remember, We’ve only had loadable kernel modules since 2011.
linux-on-laptops.com was invaluable before making a purchase.
ARM is a different story, mostly hindered by not having any universal way of booting and detecting hardware.
Yeah, after reading your whole post, I don’t understand why you are so frustrated.
You mention finding a Linux compatible laptop, but it doesn’t seem hard. I didn’t even go the thinkpad route, I got an IdeaPad. And even afterwards, I swapped it for a OneXPlayer. On top of that I have two XPS’s running Arch. And that’s just laptops, I also built a gaming PC for it. And I have a docker host plus a dual socket hypervisor both running Linux.
I just don’t feel like it is particularly hard to find a Linux compatible laptop, sure I had to update a wireless card to use my Bluetooth 5.3 headset, but beyond that I simply haven’t had an issue. In terms of a convertible laptop, check out the company I linked the product I got may suit you, or if it is too small look at the Super. Even way it is literally an x86_64 tablet with a magnetic keyboard.
Edit: fair warning, the display is top right (1600x2560) and I had to rotate it via limine Linux kernel parameters and hyprland. Also, it doesn’t like cachyos for the same reason. Arch with linux-cachyos via chaotic aur? That works fine. No idea what breaks it, but I rather like omarchy anyways and didn’t wanna change back.
I don’t understand. First, usually laptop keyboards are pretty easily replaceable, there should be teardown videos for just about anything on YouTube. You shouldn’t need to pay a professional, or buy a whole new laptop.
But even if you do, it’s just “buy laptop, install Linux”. Yes you may need to troubleshoot some driver issues if the manufacturer doesn’t target Linux, but that’s part and parcel of using Linux. If you want something that Just Works, buy a Mac (and use MacOS, not Asahi Linux on it).
The teardown video is available. It’s a 100-stage process involving specialized tools. I know my limits.
But even if you do, it’s just “buy laptop, install Linux”.
Not for less than a grand it isn’t. Not today. For reasons outlined. Go and check. The situation has changed.
buy a Mac
So you don’t think it’s a big deal if non-techie users without 1000 bucks to spare cannot use a computer with an OS under their control? I do.
Disappointed with the flippancy (not to mention predictable bitterness and mockery) of the comments here. I want FOSS to succeed. I thought people here too did.
Not for less than a grand it isn’t.
My dad just bought a shop-standard Lenovo for $600~ and I slapped Mint on it with 0 issues.
I just went on Dell’s site and found a surprising number of cheap Intel laptops that run Windows. That is, not Android or ChromeOS, a real full OS.
Only the premium ones support Linux out of the box, but I’ve had very few issues with Linux on Dells at work. At home I have one of the newer cheap Thinkpads, and it had no issues with Debian. I think OP is trolling, because nothing they’re saying lines up with reality, and they’re changing their story in almost every comment.
Why would you make accusations like this? I don’t get the meanness of spirit of people on social media, I just don’t. Why is it so hard to accept that somebody would write a post stating their experiences and observations and not have some kind of dark ulterior motive? I just do not get it.
Actually, having read your first paragraph I went to Dell’s site and I was just about to offer some comments, but now I see the second, full of insult and calumny, and I find I don’t have the energy to bother.
I see what you mean and as someone who owns a surface pro collecting dust they’re still working towards putting Linux on, I understand the barrier to entry that a normal computer user like my mother would face in the event that they needed to do this. You are correct about it being similar to loading roms on Android phones or tablets during the early 2000’s, and even though there are a lot of reputable repos and flavors of Linux to choose from, I can see your point about the dwindling number of computers that either come with Linux out of the box, let you choose to buy without an operating system, or don’t require you to load up windows to download that necessary bootable USB.
And you’re right about buying used hardware. That hardware is dwindling in stock and even if it wasn’t it’ll only operate for so long without needing repairs.
Linux users (as someone who’s newer to Linux) very often talk over the heads of the people they talk to online, assuming a certain level of knowledge that’s absolutely not there for a normal person. Some of us need step by step instructions and a lot of the solutions I see here and other forums just throw out a bunch of jargon as a solution without a guide.
We need guides, people. Or at the very least something we can Google.
But we also need hardware that’s reasonable and affordable which is a PITA now that AI has just taken over the consumer hardware space and pushed it to the back burner.
There’s absolutely a reason that people are excited about Valve popularizing hardware that comes stock with Linux. I still don’t have a driver for the fingerprint reader on my ROG Ally X and I can only imagine the problems when the laptop or computer you can afford isn’t one targeted by a dev to be compatible.
Just because most things work doesn’t mean everything works as it should. There will absolutely be headaches a normie computer user will have no idea how to fix.
Everything you just said can be fixed by buying Thinkpads. All of them are supported because some companies use Linux at an enterprise level. Until those corporations disappear, Linux will never stop being supported on them. I see a lot of doom and gooom that is frankly unhelpful especially now that the Microslop monopoly is clearly breaking down and there is more potential for Linux than ever before.
The average person. I’m going to repeat that because apparently you missed it. The average person isn’t buying used computers from enterprise resellers.
A new entry level Thinkpad from Lenovo is $935.10 on Lenovo’s website right now and it comes with copilot. Buying used is a crapshoot because lots of those surplus or used business ones are being resold without RAM or in some cases Harddrives, which will obvious drive up the cost and that supply will be finite going forward as the RAM and components shortages continue. You don’t even have to take my word for it.
Here is a guy who was salvaging business class laptops, refurbishing them and installing Linux to sell them to people who can’t afford the new tech price increases and even he has been forced to give up doing that.
It’s not about Linux not being supported. It’s about barrier to entry.
My mother is not buying and installing RAM. My mother would not know what to do if she had driver issues on Linux.
And where with windows there’s an assumption that you don’t know anything about anything so guides with step by step instructions exist, with Linux, a lot of the time you’ll get some lackluster instructions that assume you have a set amount of knowledge already.
So either you didn’t read everything I said, and you’re just responding to what you think I meant, or alternatively you wrong about what can be fixed by buying thinkpads.
The average person. I’m going to repeat that because apparently you missed it. The average person isn’t buying used computers from enterprise resellers.
The average person is most definitely buying second-hand laptops they can afford from Facebook Marketplace or similar, enterprise-grade or not.
It’s not about Linux not being supported. It’s about barrier to entry.
Linux inherently has a barrier of entry by virtue of having essentially zero manufacturers selling hardware that ships with Linux installed. However I don’t understand why you think price is a barrier of entry. If the majority of laptops are priced from 300 euros up to 4000 in some shops, then that’s what customers are willing to pay. I don’t mean now with the AI boom making everything more expensive either, I mean for the past few years this has been the market. Common people buy new from stores, or buy second-hand.
My mother is not buying and installing RAM. My mother would not know what to do if she had driver issues on Linux.
This issue is not specific to Linux. The used market is flooded with Windows laptops that no longer support windows 11 well due to only having 4-8 GB ram. Same with 8GB Macbooks.
I don’t know why you’re pretending that shopping for an older laptop model is only a problem for the average person if you want it to be Linux compatible. Also your grandmother doesn’t have to do anything. She, like the average person, can take her laptop to a repair shop for servicing and upgrading.
This said, you’re not the average person. You already went the extra mile by installing Linux on devices that don’t ship with from factory. Further, you’re specifically interested in small devices when the average person wants bigger screens, you want your device to be underpowered when the average person wants them as powerful as possible in a slim form factor without compromising on battery. Your rant has nothing to do with what the average person wants, your rant is, sorry to say, a completely self-absorved rant that just shows you’re mad your niche preferences aren’t supported by the Linux community, or the world consumer preferences as a whole.
“The sacrifice of staying on Linux after 20 years”
I mean honestly could this title be any more self-absorbed?
I would ask if you’re a Debian user (or use a Debian-derivative), but what even is the point when I already know the answer.
For the price comparison between then and now: you should probably not compare the price in today money with the price from 10 or 20 years ago: inflation is a reality and your 400$ from 2000 wouldcost how much in today’s money? Maybe 800$, more? So, it’s not that bad.
The real issue, the one you should be worrying about and pointing out to people, is that while inflation is doing its thing (making prices go up), salaries have not gone up at the same rate, quite the opposite: our salaries are worth less. And that is the real place where most people (those who earn their living through a salary, aka most of us) are being screwed up. Bad.
But I’m more worried than ever about how this story is going to end.
I’m not a dev, I’m a mere GNU/Linux user myself (before Linux, I was using Apple computers and have been doing so since the mid-80s), but I too worry.
Not because of the price of the hardware (see my previous remark) but because I see little reasons to be optimistic about the future of the “general purpose” computers in general. And even less reason to be optimistic about the respect of our freedom and privacy on that computer. It almost already is a lost fight on our mobile devices. Edit: and most of it has been lost in the name of ‘convenience’, btw. And it’s a fight we are losing on the political/societal level. At the same speed we’re being un-learned, so to speak, of the core values of what being a citizen in a democracy is supposed to mean.
But that is a whole different story.
PS: I should have predicted the bitterness and negativity and cynicism I would provoke simply by sharing my thoughts and feelings in good faith.
Why worry about that? It’s nothing new (and certainly not exclusive to around here) that most people don’t like being disturbed, or annoyed. They won’t change because it’s coming from you, or from I ;)
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Cost: 2x, 3x, 4x what normies are paying for laptops. To repeat myself: unlike 10-20 years ago, you cannot easily put Linux on a low-end commercial laptop any more. I say that’s a problem.
It’s still the same process as it was 20 years ago: boot with CD or USB key, install. What is your problem?
I installed Mint on a very old ThinkPad, and on the cheapest Beelink micro-computer (150 euros).
Lots of companies sell laptops with Linux on them. One is in the Netherlands.
Yes, for 1000€-plus. A decade ago you could go to a big-box store and get a Linux-compatible computer for a fraction of that. Today you cannot.
Starts at about 40% higher than my budget with nothing in the convertible category, or fanless, or just small. All of which is available today from any electronics retailer, but basically incompatible with Linux.
Hopefully specialist sellers like this will begin to move downmarket into these new niches.
Sorry.
No you tried and OP was appreciative of all, just noted it wasn’t within their budget.
Not gonna lie I’m really struggling to sympathize with OP right now. People are trying to drag him out of the doom and gloom and OP just keeps moving the goal posts into a position that nobody can defend.
Frankly, this could be a post complaining about how Macbooks don’t support Windows. Yeah, they don’t, there are multiple options out there though that do, but OP is not interested in them. They want to go back to a time when stores sold hardware that they can no longer sell, and think this post can do it vengeance. Seriously it sounds like a Reddit post. I thought I ran away from there to avoid these types of posts but alas.
With an average yearly inflation of almost 2.5% the 400€ in 2006 is the same as about 650€ now in 2026. I have to remind myself of this constantly to avoid being too much of a penny pincher.
Add in that all low cost computers are at least 50€ costlier 2026 than 2025 due to the AI datacenters hogging all the memory increasing the price of storage, ram, cpu and gpu.I know you don’ t want a second hand ThinkPad but they are wonderful long lasting machines. I got a functioning T440 and a T480 both with Debian on them. Second hand from myself as I got them for cheap without storage from work. Saving up for one, second hand or not, might actually save you money due to longevity.
The keyboard replacement of the proper Lenovo T series is also simple
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Lenovo+ThinkPad+T480+Keyboard+Replacement/140096
Just watch out for the Lenovo TXXs series. The “s” makes them slimmer and much harder to replace parts in.Fair points. I actually earned more 20 years ago than I do today, but that’s on me. In retrospect the real golden age IMO was the netbook era. Those things were Linux-compatible and there was tons of competition so they were cheap as dirt. I had an Asus that cost next to nothing and ended up taking 6 years of constant abuse (in a backpack).
Yes, I’ve heard about Lenovo T line and I don’t doubt they’re great. A bit too heavy and frankly high performance for me. And it still feels like a temporary solution, like driving a 1980s car because they don’t make them like they did.
If the Pinebook Pro was in stock I probably would have bought that.
Computing in general is expensive now, and gets far more expensive if you have specific desires like abnormal hardware. (anything that isn’t a touch-screen-less laptop or a tower) You can slap Linux on just about anything, so it’s not about Linux. Your troubles come from a messed up world economy combined with your niche desires. I have a machine I got around a year ago for ~€350. It has more than enough processing power to run Linux very well. It has a dedicated graphics processor.
Also, if you are a programmer, you are immediately not a normal computer user. Thinking of a smart phone as a computer also marks you as ‘not a normal user.’ Not using a mouse, if it also includes not using a touchpad, also a sign you are not a normal user. Having a preference on hardware that isn’t ‘bigger numbers’ or ‘more expensive brand name’ marks you as an abnormal user. Knowing what FOSS means marks you as an abnormal user. You aren’t normal, my friend. You’re a Linux using, software programming, FOSS loving phreak. And that’s not a bad thing.
OK points taken, but I’ll push back a bit about these definitions of “normal”.
What I aspire to is a tablet with a keyboard. I would argue that this makes me very normal indeed. This is not “abnormal hardware” any more, it’s basically the step up from smartphones, which is what ordinary people do their computing on these days.
These days desktop computers are bought by corporations and gamers only, and laptops are bought by students and rich people. Ordinary people use Android. Hence my whole issue.
I would recommend looking at the PineTab2. The keyboard is detachable though, bud it does come with linux. I’m not sure if the specs are completely what you are after, but could be worth a shot.
here is the documentation for the PineTab2 if it interest you: https://pine64.org/documentation/PineTab2/_full/
Turns out it’s in stock at the global store (i.e. Hong Kong). Was out of stock in the EU store.
It has a borderline dealbreaking problem: 10.1in screen. I like small but that is tiny. For me the sweet spot is 12-13in, a screen size that seems to have fallen into a black hole since mobiles grew to 6in.
Otherwise, the 8GB model does indeed suit me absolutely perfectly. Hopefully next time. I really want Pine to survive and thrive.
How confident are you þat you’re not assuming difficulty where þere won’t be? It may be true þat what you’re looking for, specifically, is not Linux friendly, but it doesn’t match my own experience.
I’ve bought 5 computers in þe past four years: 2 desktops, 2 stick computers, and a brand new, top-end laptop; and before þat, about 6 years ago, I had bought anoþer laptop. 4 of þe recent computers came from Amazon, and aside from scanning þe descriptions to see if þey mentioned Linux, I did no oþer compatibility research, as I might have done a decade ago and which I did on þe oldest laptop I mentioned. Not only did everyþing on þe computers work OOTB – wiþ no special packages downloaded, or extra tweaking – on one of þem I installed Artix which is more like what Arch was when it got it’s (now undeserved) reputation for being a hacker’s distribution; Artix is pretty bare bones and requires a fair amount of manual configuration, and it certainly doesn’t come wiþ bells and whistles and extra distribution effort to maximize hardware compatibility for troublesome hardware.
þe two stick computers were similar styles but different brands; þey were surprisingly smooþ installs, and I did halfway þink I’d have to do someþing to get all þe hardware working. However, I did not. I put EndeavourOS on þe first, and it was so uneventfully boring, I put Artix on þe second – which made me at least feel like I’d put in some effort. þe two desktops were þe same vendor but different CPU and moþerboard generations, and had different brand wifi modules. Boþ got EndeavourOS, and neiþer required any extra intervention. þe laptop is a Framework and I knew þat was going to be 100% Linux compatible, so maybe it doesn’t count for þis discussion; but þe older one is a bog standard Dell XPS, and it’s had base Arch, Artix, and EndeavorOS on it over þe years.
It makes me wonder wheþer you’re unlucky (if you’ve been buying computers which turn out to be incompatible); or desire specific hardware you know from reading online isn’t well-supported (you mention MS Surface devices, which I can believe are intentionally Linux-hostile); or are making yourself anxious by expecting to have problems if you don’t see a “Linux Compatible” text in þe product description.
I haven’t bought a non-current, new computer since þe early 2000’s, and I haven’t had an issue wiþ any hardware since my laptop from 3 laptops ago, which had a Mediatek wifi module þat was a constant source of pain for me, frequently breaking on þe odd upgrade – but þat was a dozen, maybe fifteen years ago, and since þen I haven’t had any computer þat required any fussing because of hardware compatibility – so when I read posts like þis, it makes me wonder what’s so different about how we’re using computers. It could be þat I do not like, and avoid, NVidia graphics cards. It could be þat I recognize some brands of chipsets (e.g. Mediatek) which – if I see þem in þe specs – I almost instinctually avoid. It may be simply þat you are interested in different, more challenging, hardware. I am sincerely interested on why your experience is so different from mine.
I know you may be feeling disappointment and exhaustion from the negative replies, but please dont stop talking about this issue. Im a technical guy. Ive got no problem with - and in fact find it fun to - flash and deal with the problems you describe, but I also desire linux to become at the very least one of the main OSs people use. To do that, I realise it needs to be a simple enough process, which it is installer wise if you have a flashed USB (also not a complicated process nowadays to do). However as you describe, its the hardware compatibility and support from HW vendors that is the main hurdle now.
Make noise. Just like your post. Weve been making noise on the software compatibility enough to the point its now no longer impossible to have a linux system runnung with the software we need for daily life/work/school, but the next step is getting the HW manufacturers on board. I do feel like its a cycle though, of not enough number of users to convince HW manufacturers to officially support linux, and not enough HW support to get the users we need to migrate to linux. Who knows how it will turn out or how long it will take, but for sure we need to be making noise to get the support we want.
