Re: Linux v Windows @Badmouth
I think that you need to look at more hardware, and maybe more recent Linux distros. The days of having to compile everything up from source are long gone.
I run everything from GDI printers, through HP, Epson and Brother, and although there are some problems, if you're using a fairly mainstream distro, many, many printers have local page-imaging support in CUPS and Gutenprint for many so-called winprinters, and even the most obnoxious printers often have some support from the manufacturers for Linux.
The worst I've come across recently was the GDI HP LaserJet 1000 (ancient, purchased from a car-boot for a very specific job), which eventually worked when I used an installation script from the HP support site that adds a special USB driver to the kernel, and then configures CUPS to raterise the pages in the correct format.
Thankfully, the worst offender (Lexmark) have left SOHO market, and their business oriented printers understand PostScript and PCL5e and later, so work pretty much out of the box with generic drivers that ship with all Linuxes.
Other than bleeding-edge devices, most hardware things work without installing drivers (or even putting a driver disk in). There is niche hardware, of course, but I would say that more and more, hardware vendors are learning that they cannot ignore Linux, and often the support that they write for OSX can be adapted relatively easily for Linux.
For run-of-the-mill hardware that you find in most consumer computers nowadays, it is much easier to do a vanilla installation of Linux than it is to do the same with generic Windows installation media. Windows users rely very heavily on the vendor tweaked installation media. If they actually had to do it from Microsoft supplied generic media, they would discover a new world of pain, especially if the network hardware in their machine is not recognised by the standard Windows drivers (as was the case on the last two PC's I most recently built).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
