I just installed EndeavorOS on an HP Spectre360 that’s roughly 2 years old. I am honestly surprised at how easy it went. If you google it, you’ll get a lot of “lol good luck installing linux on that” type posts - so I was ready for a battle.
Turned off secure boot and tpm. Booted off a usb stick. Live environment, check. Start installer and wipe drive. Few minutes later I’m in. Ok let’s find out what’s not working…
WiFi check. Bluetooth check. Sound check (although a little quiet). Keyboard check. Screen resolution check. Hibernates correctly? Check. WTF I can’t believe this all works out the box. The touchscreen? Check. The stylus pen check. Flipping the screen over to a tablet check. Jesus H.
Ok, everything just works. Huh. Who’d have thunk?
Install programs, log into accounts, jeez this laptop is snappier than on windows. Make things pretty for my wife and install some fun games and stuff.
Finished. Ez. Why did I wait so long? Google was wrong - it was cake.
On the contrary, it’s often new hardware that causes the problems because the drivers won’t have been reverse-engineered yet
A lot of hardware has first party support
But plenty doesn’t e.g. Broadcom wifi cards. If you just buy whatever new hardware and expect Linux to work out of the box, you’re likely to have problems ime.
There are always options of course, but you have to shop wisely!
Broadcom hasn’t made laptop WiFi cards in a long time.
Ok, fair cop, I’m misremembering things — I had issues with a realtek card recently though. The point is that, as good as first party support is these days, you can’t just buy anything and expect it to work, especially if it came out in the last couple of years.