I just was reading a story on /. about the difference in driver support between Linux and Windows. Most of the replies in favour of the driver support of Windows gave as a reason that they had a piece of hardware that just didn't seem to work on Linux. “Oh, my FuBar deluxe 1000 pro™ card just worked under Windows, but when I installed Linux, I couldn't get the darned thing to work”. The first thing that popped my mind when reading those comments was: “how in earth can you buy something if you are not sure it will work in all the situations it is supposed to?” I mean, if you bug a car you want it to work in all situations. You do not (at least I do not) want to have to avoid the Highway simply because your car does not function at high speeds?!

Of all computer hardware I've bought in my life, I only once had to return a piece because it didn't properly function under Linux (it was a NVidia graphics card, back in the days when NVidia didn't support the Linux community yet). Before I buy a piece of equipment, I first make sure that it will work properly under Linux, otherwise I simply won't buy it! I believe that if more people would be more thoughtful about whether their purchases would work in all situations, the above mentioned arguments would simply vanish. If you enter the words “Linux driver” in combination with the name of the product, you instantly know whether it is supported or not. If it isn't supported and you still purchase it, you simply cannot complain about it, or you should take your favourite editor and write the darn driver yourself!

For people who aren't of the caliber “hardware wizard”: you most certainly know someone who is; ask him/her! Trust me, you won't be complaining anymore when trying to install Linux ... ;)