I've been using the combo for since the late 1990s. You always need to research the specific machine a bit, because each new generation of chipset or periphera

I've been using the combo for since the late 1990s. You always need to research the specific machine a bit, because each new generation of chipset or peripheral may introduce a temporary Linux headache. Being an early adopter means experiencing some of that until it converges back to smooth support. I am currently very happy with a T495 and Fedora. I ordered it soon after it launched in the US, gambling that the chipset issues were mostly resolved with other machines that launched earlier with the same AMD Ryzen platform. I first installed it with Fedora 30 and upgraded to 31. There was one weird kernel update that would not boot without custom boot params. I think that was addressed with both later kernel updates and also a BIOS update that made some ACPI changes. Mostly, I've seen Thinkpads that still worked fine when they were long in the tooth and I upgraded as work budgets cycled. This history includes (as best as I can recall): X20, X22, X40, T40, T41, T61, X200, T410s, T440p, T460s, and now T495. I had brief encounters with Dell, Hitachi, and Sony before that first X20. Over all the years, I've had a few types of hardware failure. The worst was a T41 which failed thermally and had its mainboard replaced at an IBM service center. I also had a heatsink and fan replaced on the X200 because it made an annoying vibration at times. I had an Intel SSD fail abruptly in a T440p. I also had a key jam and then eject itself on that T440p, requiring a new keyboard. I had fluorescent backlights go pink and fail in the old days. An of course I've had batteries lose their capacity over time. I've upgraded the SSD on a few devices to add space after a couple years, and I bought an aftermarket battery once. But, generally I've provisioned the machine with the RAM and wifi I wanted on day 1 and never touched it again.