Re: Won't install properly @Peter R. 1
I hope your comment was not aimed at me!
If it was, I think you've missed out the gist of what I was saying. If you install or buy some bleeding edge or niche hardware for Windows, something that is not in the normal Windows driver repository, the vendor provides this thing, normally a shiny silver disk or a link to a web site, that adds the support for that device to Windows.
Without it, you would have as much trouble running that hardware on Windows as many people experience on Linux. As an exercise, try installing Windows on one of these problem systems just from Microsoft media, and see how much stuff doesn't work without the mobo and other driver disks from people other than Microsoft. It's an education.
The problem hardware vendors do not provide their own drivers for Linux, and this is the biggest problem for niche hardware. You cannot expect anybody else in the Linux community to reverse-engineer hardware drivers for this type of device. If it's important, do it yourself, and contribute it back into the community!
Do not expect someone like RedHat or Canonical to provide drivers for Linux when Microsoft do not do it for Windows (remember, even drivers in the Windows repository are often provided by the vendor, not Microsoft themselves). It really is the vendors responsibility to ensure that their hardware is supported, not the OS community.
It is a wonder that as much works as it does with just the base Linux install media. A testament to all the hard work that has been done, often by volunteers or philanthropic companies.
What I find more cynical is those vendors who provide Mac OS drivers which would differ comparatively little from the Linux ones, but don't actually bother with that last step of packaging and testing for Linux.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
