[athrun]

Not OP, but I found there's a sort of bell curve with Linux support on laptops.

Initially your hardware is likely very new, so some things won't quite work out of the box.

Then, assuming you bought a popular piece of hardware, things get progressively better for you: improved driver support land in the kernel, distros get better at auto-configuring for your hardware, etc.

Finally, 3 years out, upstream development has moved on, your specific hardware configuration is no longer actively tested, and things start to break left and right.

All in all, you have a small window of optimal Linux support for your hardware.

[kitsunesoba]

There are still components that you need to watch out for when buying a used laptop if one intends to run Linux. Broadcom WiFi is notoriously painful for example (have seen routine updates break those drivers several times over the years), and even though Nvidia provides official Linux drivers those can complicate things too.

The most painless Linux laptops are those that use integrated graphics only and for the best experience, use Intel networking instead of Realtek (Realtek often works, but it working well is highly dependent on the specific chipset).

[davidandgoliath]

FWIW, my Lenovo x1 from 2012 hasn't had an issue with fedora ever. Can't speak to other distros, reliability is key for me.