I've been playing with Linux since 1995 and in the very beginning it was a pain in the ass for me and my friends to use it properly and productive. The missing drivers were the main problem. no matter if you were using an isdn card or a scanner, you coulnd't find, compile or write your own drivers. Hardware vendors did their best to keep it this way. There has been no support, no drivers or anything else for any system except windows. I do not want to discuss the reasons here, but as the headline states: exactly this is now the best part of Linux.

Timewarp. 2013. some examples:
I have a cheap Nikon Camera, plug it into my linux desktop and bing, am able to control it completely with my gphoto program, take photos, download them on the computer, compile timelaps films, etc.
Or my scanner, an Canon scansomething. plug and scan. The program "sane" just uses it as any other newer scanner.
My HP Laserjet: just plug it in, use a common pcl driver and CUPS, and print, even in duplex mode.
There are so many examples on how easy Linux is to be used nowadays. No driver CD's needed. Just simply use the tools.

Thew Hardware support is so extreme good because of the need to build common interfaces with little device specific code at the backend. You do not need to install a bloated 40 megabyte diver suite for your scanner, with unusable software , which will probably never be updated again or a 54 megabyte printer driver for just showing you the status of the toner cart...

I hear people talking about a problem in the linux desktop market, but in my view windows has the problem. Drivers refuse to work in newer win versions, older programs refuse to, also. The user interface has been made unusable, even worse is the most used program "word". O M G - completely totally unusable. terrifying

This whole situation, combined with easy to install and use distributions like Fuduntu blow away all doubts: Linux will dominate the whole pc market in a couple of years, not only the servers.


Have fun playing with fuduntu!

p.s. yes, apple os is indeed usable, stable, good looking and very good in hardware support (due to the lack of hardware :P ) but not affordable to everyone.
p.p.s and yes, playing really new games is only possible on windows .... YET... http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/ ... 04151.html

finally, to prove my claim some screenshots:
my desktop showing Xsane

and a scanned random pc of paper...


my camera as detected by gphoto (via console)