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I'm sincerely not trying to be contrarian here, but I'm curious what issues you've run into and on what hardware? I've installed Linux on literally hundreds of

I'm sincerely not trying to be contrarian here, but I'm curious what issues you've run into and on what hardware? I've installed Linux on literally hundreds of machines over the years, many different architectures, makes, amd models. The only real compatibility challenges I recall were modems in the early 2000s, and graphics cards up until around 2010? I actually have the impression that hardware support is pretty fantastic. As an example, on quite a few occasions occasions I've moved an existing linux installation from one machine to another. New laptop? DD the drive from the old to the new, alter the partition size, grow the filesystem, and you're off to the races.

sys_64738 4y ago
Brand new hardware can have an issue if Linux hasn't integrated support yet. You get that from day one with a Windows Update or through the shipping hardware. But after a few months it's usually plain sailing. Linux installs nowadays are trivial that my mother-in-law can't even crash them anymore.
- account-5 4y ago
  Surely that's an OEM and driver support issue and not a Linux issue? The two don't equate if the OEMs and drivers they produce are actively supporting windows and the developers on Linux get no support, meaning reverse engineering drivers, or late support. Yeah it's shit Linux takes longer to support newer hardware but it's hardly linuxs fault.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    Linux and the Linux distros can hardly fix this problem, but for the end user it doesn't matter whose fault it is. They bought their laptop, they want it to work, and in such cases the only way to do that is through Windows. For example, the Linux kernel had a bug that caused the boot process to freeze after less than a second when you plugged in a display through an HDMI-to-DislayPort-converter on systems running Intel GPUs, caused by a change to the Intel driver that somehow interacted badly with another change in the NFS system if I recall correctly. Not your normal use case, but definitely a problem that shouldn't have taken half a year to get fixed for normal users. I ran into it when I helped a colleague upgrade to a newer version of Ubuntu (LTS to LTS) and the only way I could find to work around the issue was to pin the old, unmaintained kernel package and keep and eye out for updates on the bug tracker. If I hadn't known some deeply technical details about the system, he would've probably had to reinstall (or more likely, install Windows) and lose several days getting his dev environment set up again. There's nothing the Linux project could've done to prevent this issue and I'm not blaming volunteers for not spending their days debugging this, but for the end user such problems are unacceptable.
    - sys_64738 4y ago
      > For example, the Linux kernel had a bug that caused the boot process to freeze after less than a second when you plugged in a display through an HDMI-to-DislayPort-converter on systems running Intel GPUs, caused by a change to the Intel driver that somehow interacted badly with another change in the NFS system if I recall correctly. Not your normal use case, but definitely a problem that shouldn't have taken half a year to get fixed for normal users. Ah, the cable pull test. That is a pretty standard test for QA for supported platforms.
- kfajdsl 4y ago
  Yep, I got a Ryzen 6000 ThinkPad T14s on launch and it would occasionally freeze due to graphics drivers issues. The problem fixed itself after a kernel update about a month and a half later. Then again, ThinkPads are definitely some of the better hardware for running Linux. At this point Linux support is a major factor for my hardware purchases, though 99% of the time I haven't had to think about it, it just works (Nvidia tends to be that 1%, though it's way better now than a few years ago :S).
  - TchoBeer 4y ago
    slight tangent: I've been looking to upgrade an old AMD card and I'm looking at Nvidia cards, is there a way to know which cards are compatable with Linux and which aren't worth looking at?
    - CameronNemo 4y ago
      Pretty much no nvidia cards will give you good performance with a pure-mainline stack. Nvidia released an "open source" driver recently... As in it moves lots of work to firmware and just plays nicer with OSS. Maybe check for cards that work with that driver.
      - TchoBeer 4y ago
        Aw man, is that true? Can I not get Nvidia's proprietary drivers on Linux, at least?
        CameronNemo 4y ago
        You can. I don't know much about them. I do know that some software (especially Wayland compositors) don't like the closed source nvidia drivers.
        kfajdsl 4y ago
        Yes, you can. That's what I and almost everyone with Nvidia cards do. The big caveat IMO is if you want GSync/FreeSync, you can't use Wayland. It is also in general less stable/polished with Wayland. I'm ok using Xorg though, at least on my desktop.

sys_64738 4y ago

Brand new hardware can have an issue if Linux hasn't integrated support yet. You get that from day one with a Windows Update or through the shipping hardware. But after a few months it's usually plain sailing. Linux installs nowadays are trivial that my mother-in-law can't even crash them anymore.

account-5 4y ago
Surely that's an OEM and driver support issue and not a Linux issue? The two don't equate if the OEMs and drivers they produce are actively supporting windows and the developers on Linux get no support, meaning reverse engineering drivers, or late support. Yeah it's shit Linux takes longer to support newer hardware but it's hardly linuxs fault.
- jeroenhd 4y ago
  Linux and the Linux distros can hardly fix this problem, but for the end user it doesn't matter whose fault it is. They bought their laptop, they want it to work, and in such cases the only way to do that is through Windows. For example, the Linux kernel had a bug that caused the boot process to freeze after less than a second when you plugged in a display through an HDMI-to-DislayPort-converter on systems running Intel GPUs, caused by a change to the Intel driver that somehow interacted badly with another change in the NFS system if I recall correctly. Not your normal use case, but definitely a problem that shouldn't have taken half a year to get fixed for normal users. I ran into it when I helped a colleague upgrade to a newer version of Ubuntu (LTS to LTS) and the only way I could find to work around the issue was to pin the old, unmaintained kernel package and keep and eye out for updates on the bug tracker. If I hadn't known some deeply technical details about the system, he would've probably had to reinstall (or more likely, install Windows) and lose several days getting his dev environment set up again. There's nothing the Linux project could've done to prevent this issue and I'm not blaming volunteers for not spending their days debugging this, but for the end user such problems are unacceptable.
  - sys_64738 4y ago
    > For example, the Linux kernel had a bug that caused the boot process to freeze after less than a second when you plugged in a display through an HDMI-to-DislayPort-converter on systems running Intel GPUs, caused by a change to the Intel driver that somehow interacted badly with another change in the NFS system if I recall correctly. Not your normal use case, but definitely a problem that shouldn't have taken half a year to get fixed for normal users. Ah, the cable pull test. That is a pretty standard test for QA for supported platforms.
kfajdsl 4y ago
Yep, I got a Ryzen 6000 ThinkPad T14s on launch and it would occasionally freeze due to graphics drivers issues. The problem fixed itself after a kernel update about a month and a half later. Then again, ThinkPads are definitely some of the better hardware for running Linux. At this point Linux support is a major factor for my hardware purchases, though 99% of the time I haven't had to think about it, it just works (Nvidia tends to be that 1%, though it's way better now than a few years ago :S).
- TchoBeer 4y ago
  slight tangent: I've been looking to upgrade an old AMD card and I'm looking at Nvidia cards, is there a way to know which cards are compatable with Linux and which aren't worth looking at?
  - CameronNemo 4y ago
    Pretty much no nvidia cards will give you good performance with a pure-mainline stack. Nvidia released an "open source" driver recently... As in it moves lots of work to firmware and just plays nicer with OSS. Maybe check for cards that work with that driver.
    - TchoBeer 4y ago
      Aw man, is that true? Can I not get Nvidia's proprietary drivers on Linux, at least?
      - CameronNemo 4y ago
        You can. I don't know much about them. I do know that some software (especially Wayland compositors) don't like the closed source nvidia drivers.
      - kfajdsl 4y ago
        Yes, you can. That's what I and almost everyone with Nvidia cards do. The big caveat IMO is if you want GSync/FreeSync, you can't use Wayland. It is also in general less stable/polished with Wayland. I'm ok using Xorg though, at least on my desktop.