For active styluses your laptop screen needs to have a digitiser, not just a touch screen. You need to make sure that you actually have one, and if you have one you need to find out what type it is.
There are two main types of digitisers for laptops: Wacom AES and N-trig (aka Microsoft Pen protocol), which are incompatible and each needs a supported pen. A few active pens support both (e.g. https://www.wacom.com/en-us/products/stylus/bamboo-ink#Specifications), but you need to check before you buy anything.
I hope that helps a bit.
P.S. If your laptop supports Waccom AES, I am very happy with the Lenovo Active Pen 2 (https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/accessories-and-monitors/top-tech/TAB-ACC-BO-Active-Pen2-NA-EMEA%2CANZ%2CAP/p/GX80N07825) which works nicely for both Windows and Linux.