You've been given a lot of good advice, especially about Nvidia cards, but watch out for wifi adaptors too. As far as I know there are no problems with fairly recent hardware, but I've been caught out when trying Mint on an old laptop.
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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Don't get an HP. Had one for work that I had to change to Ubuntu, and I couldn't find any compatible WiFi drivers somehow.
YEAH it sucks when drivers for hardware aren't Linux compatible (my current drawing tablet doesn't support it... RIP). I'll be sure 2 head ur warning about HP!
Any will do, just make sure it has Intel WiFi.
I've been running Debian 11 and now 12 on an HP EliteBook 840 G5 (i7 8550U) and everything works out flawlessly out of the box. When I say everything I really mean everything, even special keyboard keys for brightness, volume working after install. Battery lasts way longer than under Windows and the computer runs much colder.
Just get whatever. Part of the fun is hacking it to get it working.
The Asus Vivobook is a good deal.
But as an American you might be able to afford the Framework.
I have been using a framework 13 for a year now, happy with it so far.
@PurrJPro You can't go wrong with @tuxedocomputers but it's gonna be hard to stay under 1000USD. Everything they have runs beautifully with linux and their support is far better than you'll find anywhere else. I've bought more laptops over the past 20 years than anyone probably should, and finally going with #TUXEDOComputers was worth the little extra I spent on it.
If you want to just buy some cheap laptop off the shelf, that's okay too, just do your homework first. Find out what hardware that exact part/model number has in it so you can know what sort of problems you may be dealing with later. I've bought at least 2 different models each of Sony, DELL, Acer, ASUS, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Apple, Compaq, 5~6 different off-brands I can't remember. Some work great with no hassle at all, some take loads of fiddling, and some have hardware that just doesn't work at all.
Tuxedo's laptops r enticing from their sleek look alone, and their Linux support is enticing. If I'm ever in a spot to buy from them, I definitely will! As for cheap laptops, I'm heavily leaning towards a ThinkPad, although I'll probably look at what other vendors offer Linux compatibility and how good it is. Thank you!
Novacustom looks pretty good. Wish it had amd GPU options but other than that the prices are right for the hardware.