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This comment is a bit odd to me since I don't think those basic things you mention have been difficult to get working on most distros for quite a while now.

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It depends on which day of the week it is.

Ok a bit flippant, but I've been running KDE on my NUC as a secondary desktop for years now. Most of the time it works fairly well, but then suddenly something breaks or needs tweaking. And when it does it's often not trivial for a non-geek to handle.

That said, if they can get Krdp working properly, I'll almost certainly switch to KDE as my main driver, and demote Windows to my secondary.

These threads always seem to oscillate back and forth between "It's 2024 and you can't get Peripheral X working with Linux!" and "Peripheral X's have worked for 20 years now!"

That probably means that it works for some people, but not all. So if you want to use peripheral X, maybe you get lucky and you have just the right versions of hardware and software, and it works. Or maybe you're unlucky, and it doesn't work, and you can spend months trying to get it work. It's just not how I want to spend my time.

It's just that some people check the Linux compatibility before the hardware purchase, while others rely on pure luck.

That's pretty much impossible. In a sibling thread I explained that even if a machine is Ubuntu certified, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's compatible in real world.

Assembled PCs tend to be more compatible (because of more standard components), but on the othe hand each individual component doesn't receive the coverage (testing) as laptops. There was no way for me to know that my mobo's sleep is broken on Linux, even if the previous mobos from the same producer had good compatibility.

> In a sibling thread I explained that even if a machine is Ubuntu certified, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's compatible in real world.

I've never even heard of Ubuntu certification. I instead search for people who are using the product I wish to buy with Linux, and see what they say about its compatibility. This always works. So it is not pretty much impossible.

> I instead search for people who are using the product I wish to buy with Linux, and see what they say about its compatibility

I'm not sure if you refer to friends or strangers on the internet.

In the former case, one is restricted to a very small pool of models to choose from.

In the latter case, "strangers on the internet" who say that their hardware "works perfectly", are typically completely unreliable; saying "my hardware works perfectly is treated as a badge of honor, so there's a perverse incentive.

One example, in a lot I've personally experience, is that I've read from multiple "strangers on the internet" that the wifi from the laptop I'm typing from, "works perfectly". In reality, the Linux drivers are half broken (on Linux, it has a poor signal).

Try to buy preinstalled Linux. Works for me (on Librem 14).

I'd imagine that the Linux users who report success are probably more selective when it comes to hardware. It's been my primary OS for 25+ years and I've seldom faced compatibility issues, but I also do my research and buy accordingly.

Cunningham's law in action. The first camp are asking how to get it to work.

Weirdly, by compatibility is better on Linux than on Windows.

On Windows, on a clean install, I need to install the drivers from WU to get audio working, etc. And then I need to open Intel website to get the latest Bluetooth driver, go to Dell to get the latest wifi, as on Windows Update's these are not the latest.

And even after all of this, some of the drivers on Linux is better maintained, because the support for old Intel GPUs on Windows is very short. Meanwhile, on Linux, I get Vulkan support, and all recent drivers on my Broadwell. Video perf is way better on Linux here.

I mean, Ubuntu did break screen sharing for a while 2 years ago [1]

[1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/1407494/screen-share-not-wor...

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