Hardware Compatibility

[Dumbphone]

E. g. Thinkpad, Samsung notebooks may break, i. e. the motherboard. Where can I check this before? Preventing remarks concerning search engines: Did that, results are telling about if the machine will work, but not whether it will break the machine or not. In my case a HP Elitebook 8560w and a Lenovo T 500.
Thanks for ur help!

 

[f33dm3bits]

My previous laptop was a Lenovo Legion and it ran GNU/Linux just fine so I would suspect any other Lenovo as well. My work laptop is running on a rolling release distribution right now, so I would expect you shouldn't have any problems with your HP Elitebook.

 

[jglen490]

Any hardware system can be "broken" by software. The first line preventative for that is the commitment to quality that the software or OS maker has. The second line is the user's commitment to NOT doing irresponsible things. So basically, if a Linux distro installs on a hardware system, it's not likely to break the hardware. Things may not work or not work correctly, but that doesn't mean the hardware is broken. It does very likely mean that a driver either doesn't exist or it does but needs some help.

 

[Jared.]

For the majority of cases, software can never break hardware. The worst case scenario would be that you would not be able to boot the operating system onto your machine. Any laptop could be compatibile with Linux, though some more than others. Typically, HP, Dell and Lenovo laptops have a better track record for big brands of being able to run Linux.

 

[jglen490]

For the majority of cases, software can never break hardware. The worst case scenario would be that you would not be able to boot the operating system onto your machine. Any laptop could be compatibile with Linux, though some more than others. Typically, HP, Dell and Lenovo laptops have a better track record for big brands of being able to run Linux.

Software and its relative, firmware, provide instructions to hardware. Incorrectly written software/firmware, whether written in error or on purpose can give instructions to the hardware that can cause physical or electrical anomalies that can result in damage.