[JupiterMoon]

I wonder if you used hardware than is actually supported by the distributions you tried? If you need/want Linux I would highly recommend buying something pre-installed. You don't have to use the pre-installed OS but at least you can reasonably assume that drivers will be available.

[jarcane]

It doesn't matter. It really doesn't. I have routinely had hardware that was perfectly supported by one distro or another immediately break on the next update.

Kernel versions are particularly picky. With Debian, I have historically regularly had to jump around between stable, testing, and unstable because one thing or another wouldn't work or the machine wouldn't even boot, because of the version of the kernel used.

The amount of hardware regressions I've run into honestly stagger me. Video is another one that's notoriously bad. I've had to abandon Linux installs on multiple distros because after some update or another, suddenly some or all of video functionality just ceased to work. Debian broke my OpenGL. Fedora developed a system freeze when upgrading to 23. Ubuntu routinely fails to recognize common hardware or even existing hardware that ran previous versions, defaulting back to ugly VGA resolutions and software-only rendering.

I frankly would take any pre-installed Linux laptop's claims of compatibility with a generous grain of salt, and basically expect that it too would eventually fail on some future version.

[click170]

I wonder if part of the problem is people going outside of the OS's curated repositories.

With Debian at least the curation of the repositories is one of the biggest attractions for me. Everything in there is tested at length and is known to work well together. I've never had problems staying within the repos.

Friends on the other hand always want to install the latest version of whatever package and install tens of external PPAs to achieve that, without consideration for what that means for the stability of their system.

They still carry their windows experiences and think that to install software you have to go find the software authors website and read their instructions - which much of the time apply to other distros and not the one you are using. I have to keep teaching people the Linux way to install software, use your local repos.

[JupiterMoon]

It turns out the OP borked one of his attempts at Linux by trying to install Spotify in OpenSuse...

I.e. exactly what you are saying.

[eloff]

Nothing exotic: NVIDIA 970 graphics card, Gigabyte motherboard with Intel NIC, Haswell CPU, Samsung SSD and a couple HDDs.

[JupiterMoon]

I seriously don't recommend checking Linux compatibility on laptops this way (component by component). What about the wifi? How about your system's screen brightness controls? Trackpad? Etc. Getting something that is OK is takes work and getting something really good is a lot of work.

For comparison. Try installing Windows on a Chromebook. It'll suck. Install Linux on a made for windows laptop and it'll sort of work if your lucky and suck if you're not.

If you want to use Linux just buy laptops that are certified -- it's easy and there are several options these days (I'm not going to name any but google for them).

[eloff]

I use a desktop.

[JupiterMoon]

You are either unlucky or doing something very weird then.