Yet, just last year I ended up getting rid of a mini-PC, because I was stupid enough not to validate its UEFI firmware would talk to Linux.
I have spent several months trying to make it work, across a couple of distros and partition layouts, only managing to boot them, if placed on external storage.
Until I can get into Media Market kind of store and get a PC, of whatever shape, with something like Ubuntu pre-installed, and everything single hardware feature works without "yes but", I am not caring.
I'm not trying to convince you, I'm just sharing my experience.
IMO, just like with macOS, one should buy hardware based on whether their OS supports it. There are plenty of mini PCs with Linux pre-installed or with support if you just Google the model + Linux. There's entire sites like this where you can look up computers and components by model and check whether there is support: https://linux-hardware.org/?view=computers
You can even sort mini PCs on Amazon based on whether they come with Linux: https://www.amazon.com/Mini-Computers-Linux-Desktop/s?keywor...
The kernel already has workarounds for poorly implemented firmware, ACPI, etc. There's only so much that can be done to support bespoke platforms when manufacturers don't put in the work to be compatible, so buy from the ones that do.
> Until I can get into Media Market kind of store and get a PC, of whatever shape, with something like Ubuntu pre-installed, and everything single hardware feature works without "yes but", I am not caring.
You can go to Dell right now and buy laptops pre-installed with Ubuntu instead of Windows: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/scr/laptops/app...
Yes, I know those as well, my Asus Netbook (remember those?) came with Linux pre-installed, the wlan and GL ES support was never as good as on the Windows side, and once Flash was gone, never got VAAPI to work in more recent distros, it eventually died, 2009 - 2024.
Notice how quickly this has turned into the usual Linux forums kind of discussion that we have been having for the last 30 years regarding hardware support?