These things are never YES or NO answers. But lets go with YES 😃

I have a personal disdain for HP machines, the only thing I can see us having trouble with worse case scenario is the wifi. But we might get lucky.

If the wifi is not supported by linux, worse case scenario you will have to plug in an ethernet cable, or share wifi over bluetooth/USB tether from a spare tablet of phone.

assuming this is all for educational purposes that shouldnt be too bad.. again im talking about worst case scenario here.

Dont worry too much about the formatting, most linux distros take care of that for you during installation.