Generally yes but those HP laptops can get really glitchy when they run something other than windows. You can try it but next time just avoid HP.

The screen with my Lenovo Yoga 720 (I think) is a convertible touch screen. The brightness never stays consistent in Mint. It constantly changes brightness no matter what I’m doing with it. However, I’m not sure it worked right, even with Windows 10. Still a decent machine.

My two Intel laptops work great with Fedora KDE.

My two AMD laptops do not. Neither of them detect that they have an accelerometer, so turning the laptop to portrait mode doesn’t turn the screen. My minisforum V3 is the worst because volume output is either off or on, there is no turning it down.

All of them detect the keyboard being flipped around and disable the keyboard and trackpad.

I suggest GNOME for getting started in Linux with a touchscreen. There is less to learn than KDE, and the last time I tried Cinnamon on a touchscreen was painful (granted that was years ago, it might have improved since then).

Look into the DE (desktop environment) and find out if it supports Wayland. If it does, there is a good chance that it will support touchscreens out of the box, but unless it’s changed in the last year, only KDE and GNOME currently have Wayland as the default display driver. (Not talking about window managers, they aren’t in the scope of what OP is looking for)

If you are going to use a Debian derivative (elementaryOS, Ubuntu, Mint), stick with GNOME. Unless the distribution specifically upgraded the KDE version (Like KDE Neon, the official KDE distro), most of them are still using 5.27 KDE. It works, if you use Wayland, but it is far less smooth.

For your distribution choice, a Debian derivative will be rock solid, but will lag on getting the latest updates. With an older system, that’s not really an issue for hardware. A Fedora derivative will be cutting edge. The latest updates roll out with each new version for the most part, but that can introduce some instabilities. As I understand it, an ARCH derivative (Manjaro, Garuda) is bleeding edge. Great when it works, but breaks often (particularly Manjaro).

I have a similar convertible device, and it’s almost good with KDE. KDE components switch to a layout with more whitespace and bigger icons so they are easier to touch, and some KDE programs like the file manager also opens a special menu on long press on files that is an easier to use version of the right click menu.

firefox also handles it well, I can easily scroll a page with momentum, but I can also select text.

my device also has a plastic pen (no buttons or battery in it), and linux knows to ignore touch input when the pen is near the screen so that I can rest my palm on it while writing.

but a major pain point is that so far I haven’t found a real touch keyboard. there is Maliit, which is much harder to build locally than other programs, and if you get it to work it is hard to use. then there is squeakboard, but last time I was looking into it that depended on wayland protocols that were not implemented yet in KDE’s compositor

Arch Linux on Dell 7389 : just works. Also had OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on this machine, best installer ever.

Debian on Thinkpad X390 Yoga : with included variable-pressure pen, the touchscreen is actually a wacom tablet, perfect. Also, one if the best installer there is.

Ubuntu on Thinkpad T480s : just works. Installing Ubuntu today is literally just a couple of clicks. Wife hasn’t complained in 3 years, this distro must be doing it right.

(Everything Gnome here, no additional setup whatsoever. The KDE gang will argue that Plasma has a lot of goodies for touchscreens, be sure to check it out)

Mwahahhahaaaa!

I’m running aurora on a surface pro5 for ages, the thing works like a charm out of the box.

I recently bought the TUXEDO InfinityFlex 14 which is a 2-in-1 as you describe. Well, they call it a 3-in-1 because you can fold it in such a way that you can stand it on a table and watch movies on it which is a bit silly to call a 3-in-1.

Anyway! It works very well. TUXEDO OS is bascially Ubuntu but they put the latest KDE Plasma on it which has much improved tablet mode support compared to Plasma 5.27 that Kubuntu 24.04 comes with. I really like it. You can install it on non-TUXEDO laptops too like yours. I mainly use tablet mode to read books or browse websites in a more relaxed pose on the sofa.

There’s a touch keyboard too which works well enough if you need to type a sentence here and there but for anything more than that you would revert to laptop mode.

I have a Lenovo Thinkpad L13 Yoga with Mint and touch screen works perfect. Only thing not configured yet is screen rotation.

Also works fine with an external USB-C touch screen with extended desktop, but a command to re-position touch location is needed, and when going back to internal screen only (haven’t automated it with udev rules yet).

Yes but your mileage may vary. My pavilion x360 had okay out of the box support for it’s touchscreen. I don’t remember if tilt worked.

My touchscreen is currently busted and the hinges broke the case (and probably the digitizer) so I stopped using the convertible function of it.

My last laptop was an HP Stream. Crappy laptop, but it had a touchscreen. It worked fine whenever I remembered that it had a touch screen. I didn’t have to set anything up, it was just automagicly setup for me on Ubuntu. Couldn’t tell you how responsive it was and that laptop would have been a poor benchmark anyways, but if I touched a button or scrolled the screen, it would do the thing.

Sorry, I’m old. Prefer a physical keyboard to a screen keyboard any day.

My previous laptop had a touch screen, and the Linux driver worked for it with no configuration on my end. Not exactly what you’re asking about, but I was impressed by how it “just worked”.

But that was a traditional laptop.

Yes, I tried PostmarketOS with Phosh on my old Lenovo Ideapad. It just works without tinkering.

I have an x360 running bazzite with gnome and it runs great.

Yes, I run Pop_OS on my Lenovo Yoga 6, no complaints whatsoever

Tell me you understand the health risks with unnecessary touchscreen use.