It's 100% plug and play
Is it still necessary to research whether a piece of hardware is supported on Linux, and how well it's supported, before buying the hardware?
Is it still necessary to research whether a piece of hardware is supported on Linux, and how well it's supported, before buying the hardware?
That said, I'd probably check out a laptop in general if I were going to buy one to see if anyone has major problems. I was bitten about 5 years ago with one where the touchpad was too sensitive, no matter what I did.
But if you want to save yourself potential trouble, it's a good idea to research beforehand to make sure there's no obvious compatibility issues.
Also, these days various vendors sell machines with linux pre-installed so that's an option.
Best general advice I can give is to stay far, far away from anything with switchable graphics, and if possible anything that requires proprietary drivers.
I have one of those machines. It's from Dell. Hooking up an external monitor doesn't just work. The scaling across the Ubuntu UI is all messed up.