Comment Let's swap anecdotes! (Score 1) 83
I've never actually been able to get Linux to run properly on arbitrary hardware that I happened to own.
I, on the other hand, have run into one thing that Linux didn't work with. I have a collection of accumulated 'stuff' and just last night Frankensteined a PC together. I don't even know the model number of most of the parts. It's an Nvidia 8600 (something) video card, and a Soundblaster Live, I know that much. Worked just fine, no issues. (Streams PC games from Steam pretty well to the TV upstairs, too.)
I purchased a mid-high prebuilt 'gaming rig' a couple years back, and everything 'just worked', except the "SoundBlaster® X-Fi XtremeAudio" card. That was the 'one thing'. There was a config fix but I just pulled the card and used the onboard MB audio. Whatever that is worked fine.
Just installed Linux for my cousin this weekend. Some HP laptop, I honestly didn't even check the model. Everything just worked, including the 'scroll region' on the trackpad, and the weird 'slide-touch' volume control above the keyboard.