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If you're complaining about Linux drivers please do so after using a Laptop that supports Linux (Thinkpads for example). So I Googled “laptops supported by Lin

If you're complaining about Linux drivers please do so after using a Laptop that supports Linux (Thinkpads for example). So I Googled “laptops supported by Linux”. There is no official site. Ubuntu has a page. But it’s not on the first page of results. I only know about it because I’m familiar with it. Supporters keeps arguing people should jump through hoops. I’m on Linux right now, but people have better things to do. Either provide a list so people know exactly what to buy, or all complaints are valid. Apple sells you the whole package: take it or leave it. Windows supports everything and has their logo everywhere.

zucker42 6y ago
Again, that's like googling "laptops supported by MacOS" and expecting to find a list of Hackintosh compatible hardware. Dell and Lenovo both sell laptops pre-installed with Linux, and there are also boutique shops like System76 and TUXEDO. And I DDGed "Linux Laptops" and got all these suggestions. Of course, Linux doesn't quite have the mass market consumer experience you get with MacOS or Windows, but it's not exactly hard to find laptops pre-installed with Linux.
- hurril 6y ago
  No it is absolutely not. That googling will find a list of hardware supported by Hackintosh and it will find Apple. Two very good responses. Laptops supported by Linux provides neither.
  - seniorivn 6y ago
    if ddg got desired results and your google didn't, it's an issue with google and how it serves you
  - rjzzleep 6y ago
    I'm all for bashing Desktop Linux but this statement is just ridiculous. Searching for exactly that search term gives me the following result: >Best Linux Laptops > > Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (8th Generation) Last year, >Lenovo shocked the Linux community by announcing Linux >laptops. ... > Tuxedo Pulse 14 Gen 1. ... > System76 Serval WS. ... > Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition 2020. ... > Purism Librem 14. ... > System76 Galago Pro. ... > Lenovo ThinkPad P53 Mobile Workstation. ... > DELL Inspiron 15 3000. > >More items... https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Laptops+supported+by+Linux https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Laptops+s...
    - hurril 6y ago
      Are they supported, though? That was the question. Downvote me all you want, put words in my mouth if that is what you need to do, etc. A. But are they supported and is that a meaningful question? B. I am not bashing anything Linux because I don't hate it in the slightest. C. Did you read the parent I responded to? That comment makes two claims and tries to establish an analogous relation and that does not work the way the author wanted. That was also my reply. So you missed the point of that post, you missed the point of mine and you strawmanned me :)
      - cycomanic 6y ago
        Several of the laptops mentioned are vendors who sell them officially with Linux support (system 76, dell developer edition, purism...) , so you either didn't bother or trying to create a false narrative
    - 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
      Yep, from a third party site. Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s not true. I don’t have to double check Apple machines. And anything with a Windows sticker works with Windows. Some Linux distro should explicitly support some line of laptops. Literally “buy these models because we will 100% support them”.
      - ben-schaaf 6y ago
        > Some Linux distro should explicitly support some line of laptops. Literally “buy these models because we will 100% support them”. Like PopOS from System 76?
        2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
        At those prices in Australia, it’s not a great option. None of those Linux vendors are. Dell or Lenovo has international presence and if something goes wrong with the hardware, support exists.
      - cycomanic 6y ago
caslon 6y ago
Not to give an argument along the lines of "You're holding it wrong," but...okay, yeah, I'm going to do that. You hold a gun in one way. If you mess that up in any fashion, you probably won't hit what you're trying to, and, worse, might shoot yourself. Saying things like "There is no official site" is holding Linux wrong. Linux isn't an operating system. Linux is just a kernel. So phrase your search the right way: "laptops that support GNU/Linux installation" You'll be surprised to find, immediately it lists a whole bunch of laptops sold with a Linux kernel on them! I don't normally use Google, but just for you, I checked on it: It even has an easy-answers page. If you want the whole package, look up an operating system, not a kernel.
- freebuju 6y ago
  > I don't normally use Google, but just for you, I checked on it: It even has an easy-answers page. It was at this point that this troll immediately turned tasteless like chewed up sugarcane.
  - caslon 6y ago
    DuckDuckGo is perfectly sufficient, but the above poster uses Google. So I used Google to demonstrate.
    - freebuju 6y ago
      Oh my bad. I mistakenly thought use of LMGTFY to be a narcissistic troll. Missed the part where searching google is part of the experiment.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  With Linux to hold a gun, you have first to assemble it.
- 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
  With my latest Linux machine I actually picked some easy to get laptops on a steep discount and then started googling to find other people’s experience. I’ve been using some Linux distribution or other for a long time. But that’s not what a newbie or outsider sees. And until there is the kind of assurance from some Linux distribution or whatever, all criticisms of the difficulty of getting a Linux machine running are valid.
one2three4 6y ago
+1 I find it absurd that (some) linux supporters find it not only ok but even a must, to have to tinker around your machine in order to make everything work. I could understand it in the 90s but this is a very different era we're in. I get zero value from having to tinker with my x-org settings to make the external screen work (sometimes). I'm using a computer to create value elsewhere and having to even think about stuff that should just work eats up my time and energy. I believe this is the main reason that OSx and even Windows are much more prevalent in company laptops that any linux distro. And I don't see this changing anytime soon. If even Ubuntu didn't make that cut I don't see which (distro) will. Haven't tried a laptop that comes with preinstalled linux TBH. Maybe there's some light there. Dunno. But my last experience with a Thinkpad 550 and latest ubuntu was bad. As in no proper keyboard, terrible screen issues, networking issues...
- ungamedplayer 6y ago
  I find insane that people need to tinker with anything. My fedora lenovo just works. Lol.
  - one2three4 6y ago
    Thinks were a little better with previous ubuntu TBH. After upgrading to latest LTS I got the screen issues on top of everything else. Think twice before upgrading your distro.
    - addicted 6y ago
      Ubuntu has been going down the drain for a long time. The problem is that they successfully (and for good reason) became the de facto Desktop Linux for users who wanted a desktop and not mess with it much. They’ve cornered that market to the point there are very few alternatives (at least very few that will come preinstalled and supported) but because they want to IPO I guess, they’ve stopped focusing on the desktop at all and instead are concentrating on server uses primarily, which leads to significant issues.
      - 6y ago
pjmlp 6y ago
Even when bought with support, it might come with surprises. I got the Asus 1215B with Linux, then Ubuntu decided to replace the perfectly working wlan driver with a FOSS one, except it took half an year to reach parity with the proprietary one. Likewise, they decided to replace AMD driver with the open source one, goodbye OpenGL 4.1 now it doesn't do more than OpenGL 3.3, and hardware video decoding is still not a thing. At the same time, the Windows DX 11 drivers shipped with the same hardware (it was Windows 7 back then), still work on Windows 10. This kind of settled Linux on desktop for me, now it belongs to VMs, and on ChromeOS/WebOS/Android it is anyway just an implementation detail.
- beckman466 6y ago
  I get your frustrations, yet your problem is with proprietary software and proprietary drivers. I’m sure there’s a way for you to go back to using the old drivers if you’re set on using the latest capabilities of your hardware (without it being FOSS). You don’t have to be the guinea pig, let others do it if it’s not your thing (many programmers do seem to enjoy it, and see it as a challenge).
  - gknoy 6y ago
    That sounds a little like telling someone that their problems are that their cows are not spherical. For graphics drivers specifically, having tochoose between FOSS and something that works is very frustrating.
    - dmm 6y ago
      The FOSS amd and intel drivers work great and have for years.
      - mcny 6y ago
        I would have agreed with you but sound input broke for me (Lenovo flex 14 with AMD R5 3500U) on fedora with kernel 5.8 and didn’t get fixed until 5.9. That was months of something being broken. How did this happen and more importantly did we learn anything to prevent this from happening in the future? For now fedora is on an old desktop machine with an ancient i3-2100 processor and I just ssh into it.
shaan7 6y ago
> Either provide a list so people know exactly what to buy, or all complaints are valid. Sure, these are two devices I have recently used with Linux that work out of the box: Dell XPS 13 ThinkPad T14s Or more generally, you can extend that to any ThinkPad or Dell device without a dedicated graphics card and you will have a good Linux experience. OP somehow has issues on XPS 13, probably due to meddling with too many things. My XPS 13 (9360) has everything working out of the box with Ubuntu 20.04 A very good idea if you want to confirm just before placing an order is to google "<laptop name> Arch Linux wiki" which will take you to the Arch wiki page for that device. There you can see if there are any known compatibility issues. The Ubuntu certified devices page is pretty good as well. > Apple sells you the whole package: take it or leave it. For Linux Dell and Lenovo do that too (in most regions these days). From what I understand from the blog post, the author is expecting Linux and the software to behave the same as macOS. That is just comparing apples and oranges. If you want a system that you are used to, you should probably stick to that. As in, if macOS works for you, I see no reason you should switch to Linux. I used a Mac for ~5 years before finally giving up because I just hated the window management (among other things). But hey, that does not need to apply to everyone.
- watermelon0 6y ago
  I have XPS 9380, and it's far from ideal: - when using external display, video tearing would be visible either on internal or external display - Xorg doesn't really support different scaling for different displays, and Wayland has other issues - battery life is shorter than on Windows - graphics performance is worse, at least in Firefox/Chrome (smooth animations on Windows would be choppy on Linux) - touchpad is not great on Windows, but it's even worse on Linux (even after fiddling with settings, and trying many solutions, using it on Windows feels better)
  - freebuju 6y ago
    Video tearing could be because of xorg. Try Wayland with HW decode, you have to manually enable it. Both chrome & Firefox support this now. My experience is different from yours. With Wayland I had smoother graphics than xorg.
  - 6y ago
Jonnax 6y ago
https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/solutions/pd031426-linux-for-personal-systems https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/solutions/pd031426-linux-fo... This is Lenovo's list of laptops with the minimum versions of Redhat, Suse and Ubuntu they support.
zozbot234 6y ago
> So I Googled “laptops supported by Linux”. There is no official site. https://linux-on-laptops.com/ https://linux-on-laptops.com/ has been around for a long time and it looks like it's still being updated. Though the official Linux-Laptop-HOWTO does need a lot of work to make it current.
flippinburgers 6y ago
Dell sells a fully supported laptop. System76. Librem. https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/
- sammorrowdrums 6y ago
  https://laptopwithlinux.com/ https://laptopwithlinux.com/ I run a recent XPS Developer Edition (my second) and I've had so few issues over years. It's always seemed like a different world all users with constant issues. Would absolutey recommend Elementary OS for Mac users switching to Linux. I moved to Arch a couple of weeks ago, but only because of combination of wanting to try Gnome 40 and wanting to run various cutting edge mobile Linux deps. No problems with Arch either so far.
joana035 6y ago
https://linux-hardware.org/ https://linux-hardware.org/ here you go.
akdor1154 6y ago
It's fair to say you could google 'laptops that come with Linux', which will give you a list of laptops from major vendors with ootb Linux.
lUZQnvuFJt 6y ago
Does anyone shop for laptops this way? or anything else for that matter - Google "laptops that support usb c" and expect an official page from usb c? or google "cars that have a turbocharger" and expect an official page from turbocharger? And, when you don't find it come to a conclusion that usb c is bad. No offense but seems like even if you did find laptops with linux and pick the best one, you probably won't like it because you have already made up your mind.
redshirtrob 6y ago
Out of curiosity, what would qualify as an "official site" for laptops supported by Linux? Would it be run by Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, or some other maintainer? I think expecting anything official or authoritative from the Linux side is missing the boat. What you're looking for is hardware vendors who support a Linux desktop environment on their laptops, which are not too difficult to find.
- fulafel 6y ago
  The poster wasn't using Linux to refer to the Linux kernel here - they used it to mean "a Linux distribution". Distributions have their own hardware compatibility documentation systems. Eg Ubuntu has this: https://certification.ubuntu.com/ https://certification.ubuntu.com/ and Red Hat has https://catalog.redhat.com/hardware https://catalog.redhat.com/hardware .
  - redshirtrob 6y ago
    Hence my question. Per site guidelines I assumed the most generous interpretation of the poster's comment, which to me means they found those sites and do not consider them official. In that light, I was curious what they would consider official. I prefer to take a hardware vendor's opinion as to whether that hardware is supported by Linux. They have some skin in the game, and have the resources to test the hardware, whereas many Linux distros will rely on user reports. I imagine Ubuntu and Redhat have more resources to validate hardware and so those sites are likely more reliable, but once you get to niche distros YMMV on their compatibility matrices.

zucker42 6y ago

Again, that's like googling "laptops supported by MacOS" and expecting to find a list of Hackintosh compatible hardware. Dell and Lenovo both sell laptops pre-installed with Linux, and there are also boutique shops like System76 and TUXEDO. And I DDGed "Linux Laptops" and got all these suggestions. Of course, Linux doesn't quite have the mass market consumer experience you get with MacOS or Windows, but it's not exactly hard to find laptops pre-installed with Linux.

hurril 6y ago
No it is absolutely not. That googling will find a list of hardware supported by Hackintosh and it will find Apple. Two very good responses. Laptops supported by Linux provides neither.
- seniorivn 6y ago
  if ddg got desired results and your google didn't, it's an issue with google and how it serves you
- rjzzleep 6y ago
  I'm all for bashing Desktop Linux but this statement is just ridiculous. Searching for exactly that search term gives me the following result: >Best Linux Laptops > > Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (8th Generation) Last year, >Lenovo shocked the Linux community by announcing Linux >laptops. ... > Tuxedo Pulse 14 Gen 1. ... > System76 Serval WS. ... > Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition 2020. ... > Purism Librem 14. ... > System76 Galago Pro. ... > Lenovo ThinkPad P53 Mobile Workstation. ... > DELL Inspiron 15 3000. > >More items... https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Laptops+supported+by+Linux https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Laptops+s...
  - hurril 6y ago
    Are they supported, though? That was the question. Downvote me all you want, put words in my mouth if that is what you need to do, etc. A. But are they supported and is that a meaningful question? B. I am not bashing anything Linux because I don't hate it in the slightest. C. Did you read the parent I responded to? That comment makes two claims and tries to establish an analogous relation and that does not work the way the author wanted. That was also my reply. So you missed the point of that post, you missed the point of mine and you strawmanned me :)
    - cycomanic 6y ago
      Several of the laptops mentioned are vendors who sell them officially with Linux support (system 76, dell developer edition, purism...) , so you either didn't bother or trying to create a false narrative
  - 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
    Yep, from a third party site. Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s not true. I don’t have to double check Apple machines. And anything with a Windows sticker works with Windows. Some Linux distro should explicitly support some line of laptops. Literally “buy these models because we will 100% support them”.
    - ben-schaaf 6y ago
      > Some Linux distro should explicitly support some line of laptops. Literally “buy these models because we will 100% support them”. Like PopOS from System 76?
      - 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
        At those prices in Australia, it’s not a great option. None of those Linux vendors are. Dell or Lenovo has international presence and if something goes wrong with the hardware, support exists.
    - cycomanic 6y ago

caslon 6y ago

Not to give an argument along the lines of "You're holding it wrong," but...okay, yeah, I'm going to do that. You hold a gun in one way. If you mess that up in any fashion, you probably won't hit what you're trying to, and, worse, might shoot yourself. Saying things like "There is no official site" is holding Linux wrong. Linux isn't an operating system. Linux is just a kernel. So phrase your search the right way: "laptops that support GNU/Linux installation" You'll be surprised to find, immediately it lists a whole bunch of laptops sold with a Linux kernel on them! I don't normally use Google, but just for you, I checked on it: It even has an easy-answers page. If you want the whole package, look up an operating system, not a kernel.

freebuju 6y ago
> I don't normally use Google, but just for you, I checked on it: It even has an easy-answers page. It was at this point that this troll immediately turned tasteless like chewed up sugarcane.
- caslon 6y ago
  DuckDuckGo is perfectly sufficient, but the above poster uses Google. So I used Google to demonstrate.
  - freebuju 6y ago
    Oh my bad. I mistakenly thought use of LMGTFY to be a narcissistic troll. Missed the part where searching google is part of the experiment.
pjmlp 6y ago
With Linux to hold a gun, you have first to assemble it.
2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
With my latest Linux machine I actually picked some easy to get laptops on a steep discount and then started googling to find other people’s experience. I’ve been using some Linux distribution or other for a long time. But that’s not what a newbie or outsider sees. And until there is the kind of assurance from some Linux distribution or whatever, all criticisms of the difficulty of getting a Linux machine running are valid.

one2three4 6y ago

+1 I find it absurd that (some) linux supporters find it not only ok but even a must, to have to tinker around your machine in order to make everything work. I could understand it in the 90s but this is a very different era we're in. I get zero value from having to tinker with my x-org settings to make the external screen work (sometimes). I'm using a computer to create value elsewhere and having to even think about stuff that should just work eats up my time and energy. I believe this is the main reason that OSx and even Windows are much more prevalent in company laptops that any linux distro. And I don't see this changing anytime soon. If even Ubuntu didn't make that cut I don't see which (distro) will. Haven't tried a laptop that comes with preinstalled linux TBH. Maybe there's some light there. Dunno. But my last experience with a Thinkpad 550 and latest ubuntu was bad. As in no proper keyboard, terrible screen issues, networking issues...

ungamedplayer 6y ago
I find insane that people need to tinker with anything. My fedora lenovo just works. Lol.
- one2three4 6y ago
  Thinks were a little better with previous ubuntu TBH. After upgrading to latest LTS I got the screen issues on top of everything else. Think twice before upgrading your distro.
  - addicted 6y ago
    Ubuntu has been going down the drain for a long time. The problem is that they successfully (and for good reason) became the de facto Desktop Linux for users who wanted a desktop and not mess with it much. They’ve cornered that market to the point there are very few alternatives (at least very few that will come preinstalled and supported) but because they want to IPO I guess, they’ve stopped focusing on the desktop at all and instead are concentrating on server uses primarily, which leads to significant issues.
    - 6y ago

pjmlp 6y ago

Even when bought with support, it might come with surprises. I got the Asus 1215B with Linux, then Ubuntu decided to replace the perfectly working wlan driver with a FOSS one, except it took half an year to reach parity with the proprietary one. Likewise, they decided to replace AMD driver with the open source one, goodbye OpenGL 4.1 now it doesn't do more than OpenGL 3.3, and hardware video decoding is still not a thing. At the same time, the Windows DX 11 drivers shipped with the same hardware (it was Windows 7 back then), still work on Windows 10. This kind of settled Linux on desktop for me, now it belongs to VMs, and on ChromeOS/WebOS/Android it is anyway just an implementation detail.

beckman466 6y ago
I get your frustrations, yet your problem is with proprietary software and proprietary drivers. I’m sure there’s a way for you to go back to using the old drivers if you’re set on using the latest capabilities of your hardware (without it being FOSS). You don’t have to be the guinea pig, let others do it if it’s not your thing (many programmers do seem to enjoy it, and see it as a challenge).
- gknoy 6y ago
  That sounds a little like telling someone that their problems are that their cows are not spherical. For graphics drivers specifically, having tochoose between FOSS and something that works is very frustrating.
  - dmm 6y ago
    The FOSS amd and intel drivers work great and have for years.
    - mcny 6y ago
      I would have agreed with you but sound input broke for me (Lenovo flex 14 with AMD R5 3500U) on fedora with kernel 5.8 and didn’t get fixed until 5.9. That was months of something being broken. How did this happen and more importantly did we learn anything to prevent this from happening in the future? For now fedora is on an old desktop machine with an ancient i3-2100 processor and I just ssh into it.

shaan7 6y ago

> Either provide a list so people know exactly what to buy, or all complaints are valid. Sure, these are two devices I have recently used with Linux that work out of the box: Dell XPS 13 ThinkPad T14s Or more generally, you can extend that to any ThinkPad or Dell device without a dedicated graphics card and you will have a good Linux experience. OP somehow has issues on XPS 13, probably due to meddling with too many things. My XPS 13 (9360) has everything working out of the box with Ubuntu 20.04 A very good idea if you want to confirm just before placing an order is to google "<laptop name> Arch Linux wiki" which will take you to the Arch wiki page for that device. There you can see if there are any known compatibility issues. The Ubuntu certified devices page is pretty good as well. > Apple sells you the whole package: take it or leave it. For Linux Dell and Lenovo do that too (in most regions these days). From what I understand from the blog post, the author is expecting Linux and the software to behave the same as macOS. That is just comparing apples and oranges. If you want a system that you are used to, you should probably stick to that. As in, if macOS works for you, I see no reason you should switch to Linux. I used a Mac for ~5 years before finally giving up because I just hated the window management (among other things). But hey, that does not need to apply to everyone.

watermelon0 6y ago
I have XPS 9380, and it's far from ideal: - when using external display, video tearing would be visible either on internal or external display - Xorg doesn't really support different scaling for different displays, and Wayland has other issues - battery life is shorter than on Windows - graphics performance is worse, at least in Firefox/Chrome (smooth animations on Windows would be choppy on Linux) - touchpad is not great on Windows, but it's even worse on Linux (even after fiddling with settings, and trying many solutions, using it on Windows feels better)
- freebuju 6y ago
  Video tearing could be because of xorg. Try Wayland with HW decode, you have to manually enable it. Both chrome & Firefox support this now. My experience is different from yours. With Wayland I had smoother graphics than xorg.
- 6y ago

Jonnax 6y ago

https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/solutions/pd031426-linux-for-personal-systems https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/solutions/pd031426-linux-fo... This is Lenovo's list of laptops with the minimum versions of Redhat, Suse and Ubuntu they support.

zozbot234 6y ago

> So I Googled “laptops supported by Linux”. There is no official site. https://linux-on-laptops.com/ https://linux-on-laptops.com/ has been around for a long time and it looks like it's still being updated. Though the official Linux-Laptop-HOWTO does need a lot of work to make it current.

flippinburgers 6y ago

Dell sells a fully supported laptop. System76. Librem. https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-14/

sammorrowdrums 6y ago
https://laptopwithlinux.com/ https://laptopwithlinux.com/ I run a recent XPS Developer Edition (my second) and I've had so few issues over years. It's always seemed like a different world all users with constant issues. Would absolutey recommend Elementary OS for Mac users switching to Linux. I moved to Arch a couple of weeks ago, but only because of combination of wanting to try Gnome 40 and wanting to run various cutting edge mobile Linux deps. No problems with Arch either so far.

joana035 6y ago

https://linux-hardware.org/ https://linux-hardware.org/ here you go.

akdor1154 6y ago

It's fair to say you could google 'laptops that come with Linux', which will give you a list of laptops from major vendors with ootb Linux.

lUZQnvuFJt 6y ago

Does anyone shop for laptops this way? or anything else for that matter - Google "laptops that support usb c" and expect an official page from usb c? or google "cars that have a turbocharger" and expect an official page from turbocharger? And, when you don't find it come to a conclusion that usb c is bad. No offense but seems like even if you did find laptops with linux and pick the best one, you probably won't like it because you have already made up your mind.

redshirtrob 6y ago

Out of curiosity, what would qualify as an "official site" for laptops supported by Linux? Would it be run by Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, or some other maintainer? I think expecting anything official or authoritative from the Linux side is missing the boat. What you're looking for is hardware vendors who support a Linux desktop environment on their laptops, which are not too difficult to find.

fulafel 6y ago
The poster wasn't using Linux to refer to the Linux kernel here - they used it to mean "a Linux distribution". Distributions have their own hardware compatibility documentation systems. Eg Ubuntu has this: https://certification.ubuntu.com/ https://certification.ubuntu.com/ and Red Hat has https://catalog.redhat.com/hardware https://catalog.redhat.com/hardware .
- redshirtrob 6y ago
  Hence my question. Per site guidelines I assumed the most generous interpretation of the poster's comment, which to me means they found those sites and do not consider them official. In that light, I was curious what they would consider official. I prefer to take a hardware vendor's opinion as to whether that hardware is supported by Linux. They have some skin in the game, and have the resources to test the hardware, whereas many Linux distros will rely on user reports. I imagine Ubuntu and Redhat have more resources to validate hardware and so those sites are likely more reliable, but once you get to niche distros YMMV on their compatibility matrices.