> The same acquinatance recommended the HP Pavilion Notebook 17-g119dx. Could
you help me determine whether it will work with Trisquel and Debian without
the nonfree repositories?
No, it is impossible to know for sure. Your acquaintance who is recommending
these devices is naïve. Exactly what components are found in a laptop can
change at the drop of a hat, often without any change in packaging.
Another confounding factor is firmware loaded by the BIOS. Sometimes this can
make a computer work with Trisquel or another completely libre OS even if a
component requires proprietary firmware.
And HP is another one of those companies known to implement digital
restrictions to restrict what wireless cards can be installed in the laptop.
You should definitely avoid buying computers from these companies.
I know you want a solution, but there simply isn't one. The best you can do
is try your luck, and if it doesn't work, deal with that after-the-fact (by
returning it to the shop if possible, or replacing the non-working component
otherwise). But at the very least, avoid buying computers from companies that
put intentional restrictions in them. Keep a bias for computers from
companies that aren't known to do that, like ASUS.
The one thing you can check for easily is who provides the GPU. If the
computer has an AMD CPU and doesn't mention having an Nvidia card, it's and
AMD GPU, and you want to avoid those. If it has an Intel CPU and doesn't
mention having an Nvidia card, it's an Intel integrated GPU, and you want
those. Obviously, if it mentions having an Nvidia card, it has an Nvidia
card, and you generally want to avoid those (older ones have been
reverse-engineered, but newer ones can't be, from my understanding).
