> I'm going to buy a new PC in 12 months and I'd need to make some research about hardware compatibility and performance. Especially on the motherboard side. I have to make sure that it contains no funny devices or memory mappings so, I can't use an on-board peripheral until someone writes a quirk just for that.

There are certified/tested Linux computers available from vendors like HP and Dell. Just buy one of them instead of wasting time researching hardware compatibility only for it to break later with no one to complain to. Some links:

HP Linux Hardware Matrix: https://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/4AA7-6280ENW.pdf Dell Linux Workstations and Laptops: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/overview/cp/linuxsystem... Ubuntu Desktop Certified Hardware: https://certification.ubuntu.com/desktop Red Hat Certified Workstations (incl. Laptops): https://catalog.redhat.com/hardware/workstations/search

This isn't always as straightforward as it might seem. I'm using a Dell Precision laptop shipped with Ubuntu and certified and all that jazz, and it continues to have problems that just don't happen on the Mac side of things. I use both, a "low-end" MBP for "thick client" computing and the Dell as a luggable hypervisor, since I don't have the money to spec a mac out with the kind of specs I need for that.

Even with a recent kernel, it continues to have power management problems, and the intel wifi chipset occasionally just decides to stop working. It's fine, especially given the good price I got, but it's been a hassle, and more than occasionally I wish I'd spent the money on upgrades to the Mac instead.

(And I say this as someone with a libre POWER9 desktop and a pinephone -- I love tinkering and live Linux, but when I'm working for a paycheck I get tired of dealing with Linux's issues)

Thanks for your answer. I'm aware of these systems (my office workstation is an EliteDesk) however, these systems are not suitable for me for various reasons.

I make staggered updates and these systems are not very receptive for that. I wouldn't want to change my case just to upgrade the motherboard and the CPU. Also, I'm not sure that a small EliteDesk tower can accommodate all my disks (2HDDs plus 2SSDs) neither space, nor power-wise. I also use a PCIe sound card (for sound quality reasons) which needs a PSU connection via floppy connector.

At the end of the day, these systems are very nice as-is, but I need to get them as a package and they're not very flexible. My desktop usage scenario and update path is not very suitable for that.

Last but, not the least; I like to build my own desktop computers.

> Linux is nice, way better when compared to 15 years ago but, it's not perfect. I'm going to buy a new PC in 12 months and I'd need to make some research about hardware compatibility and performance. Especially on the motherboard side.

I've been using Linux exclusively since 2007 and I've never had any motherboard compatibility issues. I think the only thing that may be shaky is wifi, but even that's pretty settled these days now that the hardware is more or less standardized. I'm not doubting your experience, just found that an odd thing to single out.

By 2007, most of the nasty stuff has been sorted out (I met with Linux in 1998, started to use it full time by 2003).

Some things I have experienced (not all hardware related but, notable and crippling):

  - Additional SATA controllers had intermittent connectivity issues with Samsung SpinPoint drives
  - Same additional SATA controllers' 2 port models were fine but, same chip's 4 port model was not recognized at all.
  - Intel Speedstep was wonky.
  - CPUFreqd needed hand tuned scaling profiles for good on-demand scaling.
  - Fedora 4 mysteriously tried to redirect all my internal X11 comm via my physical Ethernet card. Needed to add an additional card as a primary network interface to solve desktop latency problems.
  - One of my systems was unable to boot any OS installed on the non-GRUB drive. GRUB was unable to fire anything on that disk (regardless of OS brand, model and make)
  - My latest system's on board Wi-Fi and BT adapter was unusable for 2 years.

I possibly had many more small problems and I either worked around that or a BIOS update came to remedy that to my luck. 18 years is a long time. :)

I'm typing this using Linux on a MSI B550 MB I built a few months back. The network and sound drivers did not work out of the box on any version of Linux I tried. Ubuntu install process would not even complete. Pop! did come up, but no sound or network. I borrowed an old USB network adapter and was able to get most everything working once I had access to the internet.

The sound still breaks after every kernel update though as the drivers continue to evolve. I've been running Linux on my desktop for twenty years now, and I couldn't suggest anyone who hasn't to try a Linux on a next-gen motherboard as it is pretty much always a disaster for a year or two.

Unless you're developing explicitly for iPhone, Windows + WSL may be a good option. I used it at work and then also switched my personal ThinkPad from Ubuntu to Windows + WSL2. You get far more hardware configuration options in the high end (including the ability to run CUDA code directly on your laptop if you're so inclined - useful for development)