After installation, run driver manager. It will install any proprietary drivers, and firmware. You will need to provide the laptop an internet connection through an ethernet cable when you run it though.

https://linuxmint-installation-guide.readthedocs.io/en/latest/drivers.html

Your thinking of charcoal, which are chunks of wood converted into almost pure carbon by heating them above their combustion temperature in a low oxygen environment. He was talking about coal that was mined out of the ground. Plants from an ancient swamps that didn’t decompose, but were converted into almost pure carbon from millions of years of heat and pressure from being buried.