1. Lenovo has a bit of a shady history, with Superfish and Service Engine/Center being the main pre-installed malware or data leaking things that come to mind. Those were windows focused, but if they'll do it there, why wouldn't they do it on linux?
2. Often manufacturers who ship linux will add really stupid EULA/TOSs to the system. A few years ago I bought a Dell linux system only to be greeted by one that had all kinds of things like arbitration clauses I did not agree to, so I highly suggest not using pre-shipped linux versions!
3. Be prepared to distro-hop to find the right one, regardless of "linux compat" tags. Each batch of production even on the same laptop line will have small variations, and after many years of testing linux on many laptops, my general advice is you really have to distro-hop to find the right linux for the laptop you have. I know this isn't ideal, but it is the state of things. For example, I have a newer Ryzen laptop 2-in-1. Every single major distro including arch with newer kernels had major, showstopping issues... On a hunch I tried Devuan... and I have now been running a non-systemd system for half a year with no major issues at all. (and it helps me stay on top of sysvinit land since I still manage some non-systemd boxen) On other systems I've had to distrohop and the one that works ends up being something else. For example in 2015 I had a MBP on which Ubuntu seemed to just work better than fedora or debian or arch. In 2017 the MBP I had Manjaro ended up being what worked over the others. (the Manjaro hardware detector is the best in linux land imho)
4. Consider different desktop environments and window managers. One of my pet peeves is someone trying out Ubuntu with KDE/Gnome with something and when it doesn't work throwing up their hands. I think far too often what people blame linux for is really the fault of the DE/WMs. Consider going outside the norm, try XFCE, i3, or my favorite, Awesome. (there are many more)
5. Finally, while I understand we all want things to just work on the practical side, remember that computing is inherently an ideological choice, at least in my opinion it is. (I am excluding work computing because sometimes you don't get a choice on that /stares at work Macbook menacingly) I believe in the four freedoms as posited by RMS and try to match my actions to that, for example almost everything I use is gpl+, with only a few exceptions which I am always looking for alternatives to. I've sacrificed some things to get here (gaming w/ friends on some games that don't work in proton/wine, for example) but it is worth it to me.
1. Lenovo has a bit of a shady history, with Superfish and Service Engine/Center being the main pre-installed malware or data leaking things that come to mind. Those were windows focused, but if they'll do it there, why wouldn't they do it on linux?
2. Often manufacturers who ship linux will add really stupid EULA/TOSs to the system. A few years ago I bought a Dell linux system only to be greeted by one that had all kinds of things like arbitration clauses I did not agree to, so I highly suggest not using pre-shipped linux versions!
3. Be prepared to distro-hop to find the right one, regardless of "linux compat" tags. Each batch of production even on the same laptop line will have small variations, and after many years of testing linux on many laptops, my general advice is you really have to distro-hop to find the right linux for the laptop you have. I know this isn't ideal, but it is the state of things. For example, I have a newer Ryzen laptop 2-in-1. Every single major distro including arch with newer kernels had major, showstopping issues... On a hunch I tried Devuan... and I have now been running a non-systemd system for half a year with no major issues at all. (and it helps me stay on top of sysvinit land since I still manage some non-systemd boxen) On other systems I've had to distrohop and the one that works ends up being something else. For example in 2015 I had a MBP on which Ubuntu seemed to just work better than fedora or debian or arch. In 2017 the MBP I had Manjaro ended up being what worked over the others. (the Manjaro hardware detector is the best in linux land imho)
4. Consider different desktop environments and window managers. One of my pet peeves is someone trying out Ubuntu with KDE/Gnome with something and when it doesn't work throwing up their hands. I think far too often what people blame linux for is really the fault of the DE/WMs. Consider going outside the norm, try XFCE, i3, or my favorite, Awesome. (there are many more)
5. Finally, while I understand we all want things to just work on the practical side, remember that computing is inherently an ideological choice, at least in my opinion it is. (I am excluding work computing because sometimes you don't get a choice on that /stares at work Macbook menacingly) I believe in the four freedoms as posited by RMS and try to match my actions to that, for example almost everything I use is gpl+, with only a few exceptions which I am always looking for alternatives to. I've sacrificed some things to get here (gaming w/ friends on some games that don't work in proton/wine, for example) but it is worth it to me.