This isn't helpful now although will be in the future. The design of
GNU/Linux is very different than that of Microsoft Windows. Particularly for
hardware.
While I'd do things differently if I put out a distribution I'm not. What I
do do is concentrate on the business end of things and support. The way
things are my company has gone abut solving the support problem a different
way.
GNU/Linux's design has some advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is
everything worth buying hardware wise is maintained and supported by the
community. One isn't reliant on the manufacturers for new drivers. As a
result devices that worked yesterday remaining working today. That is only
true though of freedom friendly hardware. Most non-free software dependent
hardware (that which works with Ubuntu and not Trisquel) you are likely to
run into an issue with. So what that means for you is buy the right hardware!
The downside to this is that that because of the way distributions like
Trisquel, Ubuntu, and others release the software there are devices which may
not be supported until your next upgrade. In many cases there may be no
hardware readily available on the market because manufacturers don't release
new hardware after an new version of GNU/Linux comes out. HP released a new
line of printers for example just after Canonical released Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.
HP is the only company that provides good documentation and support (free
drivers) for GNU/Linux. There are no printers readily available for Ubuntu
12.04 LTS today.
My solution (I'm the CEO of libre.thinkpenguin.com) was to setup a store
which supports libre software (freedom). We do this through various ways. One
of them is by making sure we stock up on product so that users don't have to
worry about being able to find hardware that is well supported GNU/Linux. We
still have hardware that supports Ubuntu's 10.04 LTS release believe it or
not.
The better solution would be if Trisquel and others would focus on a long
term support releases and then update particular driver packages and other
critical software (firefox). The kernel, hplip (printers), etc. I believe
that with free software supported hardware this solution would work better
than releasing a new version every six months for the majority of users.
Especially less technical users.
This would be breaking new ground though and how well it would work is up for
debate. I think my experience though is probably that most expert of anyones
here and possibly anyones anywhere. I work with end-users, have development
experience (working on putting out a distribution pre-Ubuntu although for all
intensive purposes was Ubuntu- even worked with some of the same developers
that are working on it today), and work on the hardware side of things. I've
seen how non-free software negatively impacts users. I saw it when I worked
for a company that included non-free software/drivers in its distribution and
I still see it today selling freedom friendly hardware.
