My last three laptops (3y/laptop) have been bought without consideration for Linux. All three worked splendidly.

Most recently I got a cheap HP laptop with some online caveats. But it actually works nearly perfectly, better than most versions of Windows I've used. I started using Linux desktop eight years ago and it's only gotten better (and I've always gotten random bargain PCs).

> as long as you buy a system with known good Linux support

And that is where the problem lies. With Windows I can buy pretty much any laptop and expect it to work with. With Linux I have a limited selection of laptops, if I want it to work fully. I'm a developer and I know my way around Linux pretty well, still I usually run into "missing drivers", "package management is broken", "hardware working mostly but not fully" when I try Ubuntu or Debian.

I've often found that simply buying an older model of a relatively popular brand is more than enough to get a working combo.

My go-to is Lenovo, and sticking to the Thinkpad line. Occasionally I've had some growing pains, but I've found using a model that's at least 12-18 months old is more than sufficient for patches to have made it upstream.

Obviously if you have some specific need for a rather new model, then going for something like the Dell XPS line or some other "Linux Certified" line is a better plan. But for my needs, anything within the last 6 years will likely be good enough in my book. I tend to kick intensive jobs off to my local server or set up a one-off in the cloud.