  The intensively studied Diameter problem is to find the diameter of a given
connected graph. We investigate, for the first time in a structured manner, the
complexity of Diameter for H-free graphs, that is, graphs that do not contain a
fixed graph H as an induced subgraph. We first show that if H is not a linear
forest with small components, then Diameter cannot be solved in subquadratic
time for H-free graphs under SETH. For some small linear forests, we do show
linear-time algorithms for solving Diameter. For other linear forests H, we
make progress towards linear-time algorithms by considering specific diameter
values. If H is a linear forest, the maximum value of the diameter of any graph
in a connected H-free graph class is some constant dmax dependent only on H. We
give linear-time algorithms for deciding if a connected H-free graph has
diameter dmax, for several linear forests H. In contrast, for one such linear
forest H, Diameter cannot be solved in subquadratic time for H-free graphs
under SETH. Moreover, we even show that, for several other linear forests H,
one cannot decide in subquadratic time if a connected H-free graph has diameter
dmax under SETH.
