I am on this forum with lots of Live Linux boot and dual boot issues, which I fight on and off. I have time and a generally good technical background, but not on these issues.

I am fed-up with the 'modern' Windows versions, the last acceptable one was Win 7, on which I never had the issues cited above. They started with Win 11, Pro version in particular.

I still want to stay on Windows for inertia and compatibility with family and friends reasons. So, my daily 'work' is on a Win 11 Pro HP Elitebook 865 G1 laptop, which in itself is kind of OK. I do not want to experiment with that too much, other than running Live sessions from an USB.

I also want to stand on a 2nd Linux leg proper, be it dual boot, or running full and exclusive Linux on a dedicated machine. I have a very old Win 7 Netbook (32 bit) in dual boot with Win7 and Linux Lite. Then an even older Toshiba laptop (32 bit, 4GB) with 2 physical hard drives, running Vista on one drive, Linux Lite on the other. I think the 32 bit systems are 'dead' even for Linux, which goes 64 bit mostly these days.
I also have an old, but still very good HP Probook 4540s (64 bit, 8GB RAM and lots of disk space), running Windows 7 and booting into Linux Live sessions (e.g. Mint) without hiccup. This is my candidate for the dedicated Linux machine, once I decide to trash Windows 7 (which I like, but is a security risk). Is there any idea out there as to how long this system is supported by Linux. I think 64 bit and 8 GB is fine, but I am not sure about other things like CPU, graphics etc.
Then I kick around thoughts about buying a (cheaper)'modern' laptop with Linux pre-installed. Does anyone know where to shop/buy those? Good idea anyway?

It depends on where do you live, but actually you can easily install linux on almost any older laptop. Obviously need to check compatibility, but "usually" they work. It's probably easier than buying it pre-installed.

These days, all my desktops/laptops are pre used, mainly ex Corporate, & fairly cheap to buy, £25~£80 usually, depending on specs - (I use E-bay).

I think my oldest laptop is now a 2011 HP G62 - batteries being dead don't worry me, as I use them as portable computers.

Oldest desktop now, I think, is from 2014, so quite modern really....

P.S. I run 2GB ram machines quite happily with Devuan/XFCE.

The last five 64bit laptops I have had/have run Linux just fine (even the ones with dead batteries). Obviously the older ones are a bit slower, but still functional. Just use a lightweight DE (LXDE or XFCE for example) for the old stuff. I found KDE was 'slow' compared to LXDE. Lowers the memory footprint as well. If possible swap out the hdd for a sdd and you get a boost in performance.

{edited} Forgot to add, all the laptops originally had Windows on them. I simple install Linux right over the top of Windows and off and running. Only ONE host OS. No multi-boot here. If I have enough resources in the laptop, I'll just create a VM with another OS if needed. My latest has 32GB of RAM, 1TB of disk space, so possible. Really simplifies things.

All of the laptops I have up and running have all been purchased used/preused either with or without a hard drive and either with or without an OS. If they had windows, I stripped windows out and installed Linux in its place. All of my laptops are multibooted with various distros and I have had no issues with them running so far. I have been doing this for the past 15 years now.

As an aside, at any distro's website, you should be able to find a list of that distro's minimum requirements.

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Sure a lot ... Linux was know to run old machines well ...
That depend of what you want to do with this machine ... to play videos... surf the web ... or edit docs ... will be fine ...
I only buy laptops with Windows if I need it to play some games that can't run in my old "W$" machines... that's not the case today ...
If I will purchased a laptop today are without operating system ...
You can find some links to buyers if you search "laptops with Linux preinstalled" ... for sure

The only reason I will build a laptop with Linux preinstalled was "coreboot" or "Libreboot"...

I like

https://doc.coreboot.org/distributions.html

or maybe some Lenovo Legion ... or

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Rankin...k.98628.0.html

or

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Rankin....262742.0.html

But that was about preferences and requirements...

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Laptop...l.13212.0.html

Hope that helps...

Like others, I buy used laptops. My daily driver is a Thinkpad from 2018. It came with Windows, but I just removed the SSD and replaced it with another with Linux already installed, removed from a desktop that I was retiring. I would not pay the high price demanded for a brand new laptop, because the value depreciates immediately. There are many, many laptops available on ebay and similar, coming off lease to large corporations, either refurbished or not, as the buyer chooses, for a couple of hundred $US. They generally have good specs, and run Linux well. I would not bother with buying Linux pre-installed, because I can easily install my own preference of distro and desktop environment, cheaper than buying, because the seller will charge for his time. I don't plan on buying another desktop machine. I avoided laptops for a long time before realizing what I was missing. A laptop works fine as a desktop if one needs that, but has built-in monitor, keyboard, and uninterruptible power supply. They usually have fewer connections than desktops, but a powered hub or docking station takes care of that if necessary. Linux can still support 32-bit systems, although it's becoming somewhat rare. Linux will support any 64-bit hardware for the foreseeable future, decades at least, longer than Windows.

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