this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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This is my life right now.
I put Linux on my HP laptop...
Speakers give weird sound Media keys don't work Worst of all: ever since I updated the laptop somehow crashes my router? Like, I don't even know how this is possible, but it's happening.
I'm not an idiot but all the solutions to getting these seemingly basic things to work as intended are extremely contrived.
The problem is that HP writes drivers and software for those things for Windows, but not for Linux, so Linux depends on random people to write software for those things for free (which often involves complex reverse-engineering). With Linux you need to make sure you use widely-used hardware that someone has already written support for (this is mostly applicable to laptops and peripherals, which often use custom non-standard hardware). There may be a way to fix your problems, but you'll have to search forums or issue trackers for the solutions, and they're probably pretty involved to get working correctly. The router crashing thing is probably just a coincidence though, or the laptop is using a feature that's broken on your router.
Yes I completely understand that. But it also undermines the "give your older laptop a new life with Linux" narrative that's out there at times. It's actually not that easy. I'm happy running Linux but I wouldn't put it on my moms old laptop..
Tbf, this is more HP failing to support their hardware than a failure in Linux to be more flexible and performant.
Everything depends on hardware.
I had the completely opposite experience of installing Ubuntu on HP laptop and giving it to my father. It connected without any problems to his work wifi while his friends brand new windows laptop couldn't.
Yeah as others have said, HP does not have a great reputation for laptops and stuff.
Grab a cheap ThinkPad, they usually work very well.