I have two HP laptops running Linux -- my work laptop is running Manjaro with i3, and the other is Linux Mint with MATE. I absolutely love these two machines, neither have any compatibility problems with Linux.

No experience with Fedora, but of the other distributions that I have tried (Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, CentOS...), Mint is my suggestion for beginners. Now though I like Manjaro for its rolling releases of the newest software.