Support is an issue and even sometimes for technically expert users, but this can happen on Windoze also (examples later).
My solution for such problems: * Research hardware before buying if it is compatible with FLOSS. * Try to avoid such companies and their products that do not support FLOSS. * If you must use that unsupported H/W, then atleast make yourself heard, write/ email/ complain to the manufacturer. Here hardware means phones/ storage devices/ cameras. I do not mind a little reduced functionality but it should work to atleast the bare minimum. NP: My Laptop webcam works out of box in the distribution I use, Fedora; My Nokia phone N95 works as a storage media when connected through its data cable, this is sufficient for transferring music/ video/ images. Another iPhone detects fine as a digital camera only, so most of my music is on N95 (I have been told it should work with gtkpod but no success so far) and other file transfers happens thorugh SCP (it is jailbroken, has GNU bins installed :-). The printer HP is supported by the company HP through their FLOS drivers (which are again part of the distribution). NP: Sooner or later most of the hardware tends to get supported on FLOSS. But why wait. WINDOZ: 1. One machine in use has a network card for which no OEM drivers were made available, so after some hit and trial another drivers from another manufacturer worked. 2. On a friends laptop I had to install drivers for an elchepo web cam for which he had lost the original driver CD, the solution: connect it to my GNU/Linux machine, do lsusb, identify the chip and find compatible drivers. Believe me this was more difficult that compiling from source. 3. etc etc... or ask anyone who has lost the original driver CD for windoz -- Cheers Ajay Pal Singh Atwal
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