Hi all,
Soon I want to buy a used laptop to install linux on there. In order to stay on top of possible problems, I would like to know which brands and models are best suited for this. Can anyone help me, or does anyone have any tips for me regarding this issue?

I'm not sure if this is the BEST list, but I have personally had good results with the following brands:
Hewlett-Packard (multiple models; I've also seen their team members present at a few Linux functions).
Lenovo
Dell
Acer

Each of these brands I have personally used with success.

One other brand that isn't commonly considered, but I've used in the past is Gateway. I can't vouch for anything recent, but I owned a 17" Gateway PA6A for several years and ran many different Linux distros on it.

Any brand that pre-installs Linux for you would also work. Best wishes.

This is certainly in top 5 questions asked on the net. Best laptop for Linux.

I have had good luck with several various models of Lenovo laptops handling various Linux distros.

Pretty much all the business oriented laptops will generally work well with Linux, regardless of manufacturer. Many consumer oriented laptops will, as well, but it's not as high a likelihood to have 0 issues.

Acer, Asus, Lenovo, Dell, are some that have worked for people on here - I have used Acer, Toshiba, HP, & even converted a Toshiba Chromebook. Most that are 6 months old will work, use a regular/common distro, & all should be well.

I had good results in the past with HP, Dell and Asus.

Not a bad dodge is to look in the ACPI part of the kernel config and avoid any make that has an exception written for them . Viao, Acer, & Sony might all be there.

Of course, depending on your budget, Apple Mac laptops on M1/M2 silicon blow away any x86_64 laptop in terms of raw power, & battery life. If you're running linux, Asahi Linux is coming on fast. Software availability may be an issue if you need a specific closed-source package.

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These days it's easier to ask what hardware don't work easily with Linux. The one answer tends to be Nvidia graphics. My suggestion would be to look to see what's going on ebay and what takes your fancy and is within your budget. Refurbished ex-corporate ones are often a good buy. Then search on-line to see if anyone has Linux problems with the one you like the look of.

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Or you might look at Tuxedo, Slimbook, or System76.

I've had good luck with many of the brands named above. One complication I've experienced with Dells is that ones I had had Broadcom wireless, but it can be got working with a bit of effort.

In recent years, I've been fortunate to be able to buy native Linus laptops. My current laptop is from Thinkpenguin which works quite nicely.

They say they will install any distro. Will they install Gentoo?

That I do not know. I ordered mine with Debian, because Slackware v. 15 had not been released and the current --Current at they time did not seem to like me in a VM, and Debian has long been my second-favorite distro.

I visited the website and the "Which Distro" dialog does not have a drop-down list; it's a text field, so I dug around a bit and, on the "About" page, they have a phone number and an email contact form, so you could ask them directly. I once had to deal with their tech support I forget why but they were quite pleasant to deal with.

For low budgets.

https://www.dell.com/support/content...rating-systems

I have used lots of brands of laptops running only linux without an issue. Over the last 12 years I have uses 3 System76 high end models and have not had issues.