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Comment by mbreese | Hacker News Reader

For laptop support, it really helps if you can get ahold of one of these “Linux-first” computers, like the OP. When the components all are supported, the experience is much smoother.

But that’s also the downside — often the hardware isn’t supported. Desktop Linux devices just aren’t the top priority for developers.

Honestly, if you want to go this route, it’s almost easier to just run Linux in a VM on top of Windows or macOS.

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Well, I thought about that while ordering. Sent a mail to System76 which was the only company I knew about besides Dells XPS (that wasn't available in my country at the time). They didn't have chargers that fit with the european sockets and their system was still more expensive than the other options anyway. Plus, if something goes wrong, there is no real support available in my country. I would have to ship it half around the world for any support.

Even on hardware that are supposed to be supported, I have many times run into problems because of it only supports x distro or something like that. Sure it often is an pretty easy fix, but you still have to dig into to config files, read forums on the internet to get help.

Linux is certainly more hassle than Windows/OS X.

Since you mentioned XPS: I've been running Arch Linux on a new Dell XPS13 without any issues. Webcam, microphone, touchpad, etc: all works fine.

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