[PLUG] local hardware

[John Jason Jordan]

On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 13:05:01 -0800
Michael M <debian at writemoore.net> dijo:

> PC Club looks promising, but I am having a lot of problems with the
> homework part.  It's much harder than it should be to find information
> about Linux compatibility.  The Linux Compatible website is helpful, but
> there's so much hardware out there that it's nowhere near comprehensive
> enough.  At least I was able to rule a few things out, mostly due to
> finding the odd blog or USENET post about something not working.  But I
> have yet to find confirmation that anything that looks good and is
> priced reasonably will work.

I hear ya, dude. 

When I bought my first Compaq laptop a year ago I researched for over a
month, and was finally convinced that I could run Linux on it. And then
27 days after it arrived, I shipped it back because I couldn't get the
ATI video to work. (And the Ubuntu forums are still populated with
posts from people trying to get ATI chipsets to work.)

It took me a month of research -- and the research ended up being
faulty -- because I had to run all over the web trying to find out
stuff. And I had to post queries on e-lists and bug people who had more
important things to do than put up with stupid questions from a n00b.
In the end I had to make my decision based on half a fact from here and
half an opinion from there.

Right now I am considering building myself a new desktop that will use
that Dell 30" widescreen LCD monitor at 2560 x 1200. Think I can find
out anything about it on Linux? Hah! Lots of people point me to what
kind of video card it needs, but there are several different ones. So
then I get to try to figure out which card has the features I want --
difficult enough just because I don't have any idea what the various
features do. And then I have to stumble around elsewhere trying to find
out if there are Linux drivers for the card. And if there are, then I
have to figure out if "yes there's a driver" also means "and everything
works."

 What the Linux world needs is a total, comprehensive, all-in-one-place
database of every component that has ever been used in a computer, and
a mandatory requirement that everything be posted on it.