I never really see hardware lacking Linux support mentioned, which got me caught by surprise when a computer with a Broadcom network card couldn’t use the card. What other hardware don’t work with Linux?
Broadcom, as you’ve discovered. That’s the one brand that I’ve always had trouble with; they go out of their way to be closed source: never publishing specs, never responding to developers. They’re horrible to the point where I will not buy any product that uses Broadcom chips. Which used to be a PITA because they were also common.
Fingerprint readers, in general, also widely seem to be poorly supported.
One of my computers has a MediaTek wireless chip where WiFi isn’t supported but Bluetooth does.
A lot of people have problems with NVidia cards; I’ve not had trouble with either AMD or Intel GPUs (although, I think all Intel GPUs are CPU integrated?).
Multifunction printers are still iffy, and even just plain printers can give grief; I’ve come to believe that this is simply because CUPS is ancient and due for a completely new, modern printing service. It’s an awful piece of software to have to work with.
Brother printers have a good reputation in the linux world. Not sure what the current status is… My printer is over 15 yrs old
I bought a new one recently. Apparently they’re doing a subscription thing now, so look closely at which model you’re buying. But other than that, it works just the same as my old one.
My experience with Brother was also good, until it got tipped during a move and came out simply covered in toner. We don’t really need a new printer, but I’d buy another Brother LaserJet in a heartbeat.
I bought a Brother colour laser last year (which on the outside looks identical to the monochrome one I bought 17 years ago that lives with my parents), zero issues, which pretty much has been my experience with printers on linux (also tried a ~5 y/o & 25 y/o HP LaserJet, one being the cheapest thing I’ve ever used, other being old office equipment, think I tried the Epson ecotank and photo printer my mil has as well)
@9488fcea02a9 @sxan Almost all printers work now, since they have to support IPP Anywhere to be useable by phones
My Canon regularly gives me grief. My Epson Ecotank, OTOH, has been painless.
Intel Arc discrete GPUs released 2022
Hmm, I run an Arc GPU at work without any issues. Just using plain mesa on NixOS. The Intel devs were quite responsive when we ran into issues as well.
Arc support was added after release to Linux Kernel 6.2 and it’s steadily improved since. Older Linux distros, or “LTS” oriented distros that favour stability may still not have support for them. I know Unraid was very slow to pick up on it and I had to settle for passing the pcie device through to a VM to get it working. Intel is keen to made these viable though, and I love having the AV1 encoder from my A380.
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The lack of support seems very daunting at first.
I started thinking “Oh I wish I could transition to Linux, away from Windows, but what about the latest hardware or random gadget?”
The trick is to flip the question around, namely not “Does my current hardware work with Linux?” but rather “Am I sure my next hardware work well with Linux BEFORE I buy it?” then this remove 99% of headaches. It’s typically 1 Web search away from either a lot of complaints or positive feedback… or not much, and then it’s up to you to see if you are ready for an adventure. If there is not much but there is some standard interface, e.g. Bluetooth, and no need for a proprietary application, it’s nearly sure the main features will work. If a proprietary application is needed, then safer to avoid.
So… yes maybe surprisingly a LOT of hardware does work well with Linux!
What does not work for me, to give a random example, is the LED controller of my desktop case, which I bought several years ago while Windows was still my main OS. I didn’t put a lot of effort into it, cf https://gitlab.com/CalcProgrammer1/OpenRGB/-/issues/1683 but the recent article posted on this instance, namely https://lemmy.ml/post/32389687 makes me want to give it another go at some point!
This is my plan going forward. Linux wasn’t on my radar when I bought my laptop (and my PC but that’s a different story about just being scared to try since I use it for work and I’m not convinced Linux has comparable software I need).
I got a wicked sale on a Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Ultra, and of course a few months after I started cutting BIg Tech out of my life (I was an idiot for buying Samsung to begin with but too late now haha). No more Meta, Amazon, or Google accounts or devices for me, and all I have left of Big Tech is Microsoft on my laptop and PC. I tried Mint as my first Linux attempt, and put it on my Samsung laptop. It…didn’t play well unfortunately. I’ve read Bazzite may work better but haven’t tried it yet.
Moral of the story, you nailed it. Going forward every bit of tech I buy will be vetted for FOSS support first.
From the olden days: winmodem
I remember the old ADSL modems where effectively winmodems. I had to keep a Windows ME machine as my household router until the point the community had reversed engineered them enough to get them working on Linux.
At least they where usb based rather than some random card. I think the whole driver could work in user space.
I bought an external Hayes 56k modem and suddenly Windows was a memory. Happy days.
iPhones
Many cheap chinese web cameras from non know brands,really problematic to make work printers which older from 2015 for example canon ,Lexmark cause they use proprietary communication protocols and thus drivers for inux or exist in shitty state which would not work on modern system but worked on Ubuntu from 2012 or not driver not exist at all and so on other very specific type of devices
There is the gutenprint project supplying drivers for a lot of older printer models.
Some useful stuff for some laptops - worth checking if you’re buying one for linux:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Category:Laptops
Also this - i guess this is the inverse question though:
On the peripheral end, ElGato. You can usually get their stuff to work but they provide little to no support, usually have issues to work out, and you’ll always be relying on third party replacements for their software.
I got a stream deck plus with the xlr dock, since even though I quit content creation I like what it provides and have no reason to downgrade my mic, but the thing has been a headache and a half ever since I switched to cachyOS.
About 10% of the hardware in my 2016 MacBook Pro. Twice I’ve tried to install Debian on that Satan spawn using various gists online, and each time I ended up deciding it wasn’t worth the time
Every other piece of hardware I’ve tried in the past works without fail, that MacBook irks me.
Internal HDMI capture cards are barely supported, there are some professional brands like blackmagic that have support but nearly all consumer grade capture cards are not supported at all, because the companies who make them don’t care about Linux.
USB based capture cards often work because they use the same standard protocols as USB cameras.
Racing wheels lacks Linux support. It’s the biggest, actually only, reason why I’m dualbooting with Windows.
I’ve been trying to get my Thrustmaster TX to work on Linux Mint but no success so far. I’m still a little bit newbie with Linux so that might be the reason why my wheel doesn’t work (yet).
Often the hotkeys on laptops for screen brightness, mute, etc will either not work or be wonky, on my HP Elitebook on Debian distros the brightness keys both mute the speakers instead, they work fine on Fedora though.
Fingerprint sensor on most laptops
