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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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In general you should be fine. Might have some issues if you want 32 bit.
Most likely difficulty is if you get something with "weird" peripherals that has gone from support.
A laptop with touch sensitive buttons that was only made by Dell for one model in 2008 is something where you might have difficulty finding support.
Old laptops can often be a pain if they don't have mainstream hardware.
I have a laptop with a touchpad made by Elan. I couldn't even find a website for them, but the laptop's support page has a Windows driver that works well.
I put Linux on there maybe 5 years ago, and there just is no driver for this touchpad on Linux, so it works in PS2 mouse modus and nothing else. No multitouch, no gestures, no way to change any slightly more advanced settings like sensitivity.
Linux broke compatibility with 386 back in 2012. The kernel maintainers also began considering dropping compatibility with 486 late last year, but as far as I can tell they haven't actually gone through with it yet (apparently it's likely to be coming in 6.2).
So, strictly speaking: yes, almost any computer that was ever capable of running Linux should still be capable of running the newest kernel version, with the sole exception of 386s.
Whether it can actually do anything useful beyond getting to a command prompt on a serial terminal is another issue entirely.
They actually discontinued quite a few architectures (in total 15 architectures). But all of them where cancelled, because nobody in their right mind is still running them if not for a youtube video.
Sparc Sun-4, SPARCstation and SPARCserver are probably the best-known ones after 386.
Make sure that device doesn't require proprietary drivers (commonly WiFi or GPU). If the hardware in question needs those and you need the component to work, I wouldn't take it for free because you'd be stuck with shitty support on an ancient kernel.
Most commonly, thio affects broadcom WiFi and Nvidia GPUs.
I second that about Nvidia GPUs. While Linux hardware support is really good, there is plenty of common, mainstream hardware that never was and never will be supported by Linux, usually due to uncooperative manufacturers. For Nvidia, their non-free driver is terrible and the nouveau driver in Linux is hit-or-miss. (Note, many people use either of those successfully, but the likelihood of success drops rapidly with any of: multiple displays, the need to dynamically change outputs, multi-GPU Optimus hardware or even laptops in general, and fully functional hardware acceleration.)
Sounds like OP is more likely to have a winmodem than a Nvidia GPU that doesn't work with nouveau
AFAIK if you buy any computer from within the last 20 years, there's a good chance you can get a 6.X Kernel running on it. 32-bit support is fading out, though. If you buy a 64-bit computer, you'll be able (with sufficient RAM and hard disk space) to install any modern distro on it.
Oh you again, yes Linux supports every normal hardware, and even a lot of crazy ones like Risc-V
On Android the system is bundled with the firmware as it comes from the same people. And for some reason those people dont like providing updates for sane amounts of time, like... 20 years?
haha yes me, no I was wondering about running the latest versions of linux on older machines. are they capable or more limited to older versions just because the age and the older hardware?
Every Linux runs everywhere! This is not Android, iOS or MacOS! Backwards compatibility is the key word here.
Your purse will limit you to older hardware though.
But I just may not be able to run the newer releases that come out and continue to come out? if the machine is a tad old? is that what I'm getting? because that's what im trying to figure out
No, every Linux works on every regular Laptop.