Not too long ago I installed Mint onto a laptop that turned out to have a network card by Broadcom, which doesn’t have Linux support, so that didn’t work. I’m going to upgrade my currently Windows PC to Mint at the end of Win10 support in October, and I want to be sure I don’t have any hardware that is incompatible with Linux. Which manufacturers are obstinate like that?

  • arcidalex@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Generally speaking, most if not all hardware running Win 10 will be able to work on any Linux distribution making a few exceptions where external drivers can be found. Normally though, this will not be necessary as it will be pre baked into the kernel with no interference from you

    That being said - Mint runs an older version of the kernel compared to the current state of desktop Linux and may not contain certain drivers for hardware that came out after that specific kernel version was released. You can use a distro that favors being up to date over long term support, such as Fedora or Arch (if you’re willing to put up with setting up Arch) if that crops up. But generally, if you’re running win 10 still this shouldn’t be a problem

    Without knowing your hardware, i can’t really say more though. Just try mint or any other distribution on a live usb and if it works there, then it will work when installed