Presumably for the other things listed like power management and accessories. Webcams and finger print scanners almost universally don't work on laptops with linux.

Fingerprint scanners maybe, and of course graphics drivers nonsense but webcams? I haven’t ever a webcam issue in 10+ years on any distro.

Nowadays so much is just some USB device that even on laptops so much ends up working out of the box

I stand corrected. Honestly disappointing that places like Intel aren't outright defaulting to OSS for newer drivers.

Ubuntu 22.04 on a Dell XPS. Literally every piece of hardware works great including the fingerprint scanner.

FWIW, the webcam and fingerprint scanners on my 12th gen Framework functioned out of the box on NixOS.

I have yet to get the camera color balance working remotely well in artificial lighting, though.

That's funny, I had this in reverse. 100% Linux support of my HP EliteBook 845 g8 from day 1 (bought in November / December 2021).

Only recently (November) did the webcam start working reliably on Windows 11. Also, out of the box, you get no touchpad / trackpoint during install.

Power management does not work at all in windows. It does not really sleep, and randomly starts spinning the fans at full blast during short times.

On linux you might have to fiddle with configuration, and get unacceptable behavior like black screen and needing a restart after wakeup, until you get it working. But at least you can do something about it.

Only macs seem to get it right out of the box.

The only issue I had with power management was a 5g modem driver that didn't want to suspend - once that's blacklisted the machine works as intended - with the fingerprint reader, webcams, and sleeping. Don't spread FUD, please.

It’s hardly FUD. It’s the reason OP listed for moving back to windows. Currently on my laptop, Linux works but there is no support for the webcam, bluetooth, suspend, finger print scanning, and thunderbolt features beyond usb 3.

It’s improving and I’m sure in a few years it’ll be working well but these are issues that have been reoccurring for me. I’ve never had a Linux laptop where the fingerprint scanner worked.

Well, they also said a framework machine, which has excellent Linux compatibility, especially for the commonly difficult hardware you list.

I am on a thinkpad using an external thunderbolt monitor with several peripherals linked to it. No sweat at all. Never had to install drivers for anything, webcam, wifi, bluetooth etc all works. Linux mint has been rock solid. I've gone through three major OS updates without anything breaking.

That's not been my experience at all, with a long series of Thinkpads. I wonder which laptops tend to have such issues?

Yeah, it seems like a much bigger step. Imagine you switched to a diesel-powered car and didn’t like it, and instead bought a motorbike.