Obviously you can avoid all of this by buying your Linux-compatible PC only from a True Scotsman.

This isn't a tautology. Plenty of hardware is in the set of hardware officially supported by manufacturer or oem under Linux or known to be well supported by open source drivers. If offical data is absent unoffocial data is oft readily available.

If nothing would lead a reasonable person to believe it is supported then your default assumption should be that is likely not.

If the functionality that one expects to work works as expected on supported hardware but not on yours then Linux isn't broken your hardware is.

If it doesn't work on previously supported or otherwise well supported hardware its a bug in the software.

It's weird that compatibly is discussed as if for the next 20 years one shall be forced to use a succession of randomly chosen machines and compatibility will ever be a crapshoot.

Often people will initially try Linux on random machines but official Linux machines are out there and those who have decided that Linux meets their needs can easily find well supported hardware.

Alternatively buy laptops that come with Linux or at least are known to be well supported.

Whenever I buy a new piece of hardware of any sort I end up reading lots of spec sheets, reviews, and articles and comparing choices according to a whole range of desirable features. Making Linux support one of them hardly makes it any more complicated.

If nothing else search for product category + Linux then find a list of recommendations and then google choices that look good looking for unbiased critique focusing especially on people claiming systemic flaws in design that effect all units.

Frankly, the same is still true for Windows. Not all WiFi and BT devices are created equal. Sometimes an update breaks them in subtle ways.

Actually, I had fewer compatibility problems with Linux than I had with Windows, using absolutely non-esoteric hardware, like Thinkpad laptops, Asus motherboards, etc. Hell, sometimes it was easier to set up a printer under Linux than under Windows (which, frankly, is more often the other way around).

But usually Linux, and to a smaller extent, Windows, allows you to cobble your own solution if a solid predefined solution is not available.

MacOS is much more often a "my way or highway" kind of environment. Some enjoy it; I don't.

I would literally pay good money to watch some of you use Linux and try to figure out... you know, what's going on.

And or pay to know the actual truth about when the last time you used an up-to-date distro was.

My NixOS laptop is by far the most, stable consistent, unchanging device in my entire life. Speaking of which, shout-out Google for breaking LDAC on their most recent Pixel 9 updates.