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Comment by core-questions | Hacker News Reader

> You can call me too incompetent or whatever but I’ve been running into stupidly obscure bugs that even stumped some of my Linux guru friends.

No, you're not incompetent. As usual, manufacturers are putting weird features into their laptops that the Linux drivers and userspace can't keep up with - e.g. the debacle that is the Nvidia Prime gpu switching tech for low power vs high performance modes. Simply doesn't work most of the time, leaving you scratching your head. UEFI related woes are also common as we finally deal with having to give up on a decent experience with legacy boot.

At this point the wise person buys a laptop with official Linux support out of the box. It helps you and it helps the community (vote with your dollars!).

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Yes, weird features such as "802.11n wifi", "suspending the system when lid closed" etc. Had a well supported older thinkpad (even supports open source bioses etc), and issues cropped up in those areas

For sure, but usually this comes down to "manufacturer picked a slightly cheaper wifi chip with no linux support", "manufacturer is doing weird shit with ACPI they shouldn't", etc.

No. For me, in 16.04 everything was perfect, 18.04 started breaking things

Unfortunately I’ve had similar issues with “official” Linux supported hardware. Linux on desktop still requires forum diving.

Who is declaring that hardware "official" and if they're calling it "supported" shouldn't they be supporting it?

It was a Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition with Ubuntu, far and away the most recommended distro/hardware combination. Everything else seems to be less supported.

If someone doesn't know how to dig into terminal commands and google stuff on your phone to troubleshoot, you shouldn't even attempt linux on a desktop.

Oh yeah, Dell XPS Dev edition is usually a decent choice, although you're right that not everything works perfectly (at least it didn't a few years ago when I bought one). It is a little annoying to have bugs in a factory-installed OS, but I'm glad to at least have the option.

I actually prefer Thinkpads these days because everything "just works" when I install Fedora on it.

If you're an Ubuntu person and want it from the factory, I have heard that System76 build quality has gotten pretty good.

https://certification.ubuntu.com/

"Ubuntu Certified hardware has passed our extensive testing and review process to make sure Ubuntu runs well out of the box and it is ready for your business. We work closely with OEMs to jointly make Ubuntu available on a wide range of devices."

So in this case it is a collaboration between Ubuntu and OEMs

I have been using popOS and have no problems really. The docking/connecting to Monitors/webcams have been really smooth.

I am not a power user of other peripherals though.

Only thing you need to look out for when buying components is what the Linux support looks like. I've built 3 desktops in the last couple of years and all of them work out of the box. It really doesn't "require" forum diving.

A Dell XPS 13 developer edition with ubuntu preinstalled hasn't worked "out of the box" for simple multi monitor usecases for me. Invariably something requires an update for support that invalidates some assumption and then whoops the only guide that describes your problem has a solution that involves pulling and compiling X.org in a terminal and dealing with tarballs.

And someone can go gosh, you must be doing it wrong, and they're almost certainly correct! However I'm a pretty big power user and can actually get things to work and dig into forums, so I realize that the average user has absolutely no chance.

How do you handle video card selection?

I got the ASUS 1215B netbook with Ubuntu and got my share of issues with wlan and GPU support.

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