I want a desktop linux machine that "just works" (is that so unreasonable?). Is it genrally safe to buy a Ryzen? I've seen so many mixed messages.
Linux problems only crop up with heavily integrated custom systems. Typically laptops that cram a ton of shit into the smallest possible space, and then try to work around incompatibilities with extensive driver customization. Typically, if you can wipe a system's hard disk, install Windows on it, and only install drivers from the chipset manufacturer rather than from the brand of the laptop, and everything works, you'll be fine. But if your Lenovo laptop has a Realtek wireless chip in it, and the driver downloaded directly from Realtek is flaky, but the driver downloaded from Lenovo works, it will be flaky in Linux too. The laptop brand isn't going to spend the money to monkey with some weird driver because they like spending money - they're spending that money because they're doing something the chipset maker doesn't support.
These problems almost never happen on desktops with full sized ATX motherboards. First of all, the expectation is that you'll buy a copy of Windows and the motherboard manufacturer doesn't have the opportunity to slip in their pile of custom drivers and other assorted crapware into a custom Windows install. Second, with plenty of space on the motherboard there's no need for fancy tricks that fall down when you look at them funny.
The only Ryzen/Linux issue I've heard of is on launch week of Zen2 some distros of Linux were broken by an AMD bug which was fixed pretty quick.
In fact performance is better for many cored Ryzens than windows usually.
But when I bought it a couple of years ago, I experienced some lock-ups, about once a month, especially when the CPU was idle. I replaced the "gamer" motherboard with [1] and the problems disappeared. I think a lot, but possibly not all, of problems you see online are caused by gaming community itself. For whatever reason, that culture/market is plagued by premature/buggy product launches (motherboard+UEFI) and oftentimes CPU has nothing to do with user issues.
[1] https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=X...
But when you connect to a Windows VM via RDP, there's an option to pipe sound back to the client via a virtual sound card. On a gigabit ethernet, you can watch Youtube videos this way. :)
If you want something that just works, buy something with Linux preinstalled and supported. If no vendor offers the distro you want, buy from a Linux vendor anyway and install what you want. When people buy Windows hardware then complain that Linux doesn't work it sends the wrong message to the market.
System76 is known for simply rebranding cheap Clevo/Sager laptops.
Figuring out which Clevo laptops can run Linux and which ones can't is work that is worth money.
No-drama install on Ubuntu 19.10 (18.04 didn't boot due to drivers?). No kernel panics or even X lockups. It's wonderful to have such a fast development box.
If the stock cooler is too loud, the Noctua NH-D15 is silent until full load when it just audibly whispers.
(I'd been developing PhotoStructure on older hardware to make inefficient code paths more immediately painful, but I needed a beefer box to replicate parallelism issues that some of my beta users were seeing. Thankfully, those issues were immediately apparent, and library syncs are dramatically faster now).
[0] https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/TUF-GAMING-X570-PLUS/