this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2026
787 points (97.4% liked)
Programmer Humor
32367 readers
851 users here now
Welcome to Programmer Humor!
This is a place where you can post jokes, memes, humor, etc. related to programming!
For sharing awful code theres also Programming Horror.
Rules
- Keep content in english
- No advertisements
- Posts must be related to programming or programmer topics
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
"Linux supported hardware" is an outdated phrase only used in windows propaganda today.
Absolutely not.
Signed, owner of half-supported hardware.
Out of curiosity what hardware are you using that's not supported?
Printers 🤣
In my experience, the only OS where printers won't have drivers is Windows.
But I don't deal often with dark demoniac systems, so there are probably lots of niche hellish devices that I don't know the details.
I supported Hp Web Jet Admin on a slew of print servers for a large healthcare org after it got dropped in my lap from a round of layoffs. I'll never own a printer again. Granted I never print anymore but I would rather drive to office depot a thousand times than to bring that evil back into this house
my brother laser was easier to set up in linux . windows needed a big ass download , linux just printed.
BS, I have gotten HP printers to work on Linux with no problems.
My Epson inkjet is a paperweight without w*ndows
Epson seems to supply Linux drivers according to their website and some Linux users when I searched around
I was able to get mine working by setting it up as a network printer via windows and then just accessing it like that through Linux. But yeah, if I ever change wifi ssids I would need to factory reset it go back into windows and configure it again. (ET2400)
Edit to be clear the windows instance is only needed for setup, it can be shut down or removed entirely after setup
If I were already using Linux when I bought a printer like that, it would be returned immediately lmao
Lol I would have too, but unfortunately I had owned it for probably 5 years before I switched to linux
How old is it? Almost all relatively recent printers should support driverless network printing by now.
Certain fingerprint readers and touchscreens
ex. Goodix
It's not the fault of Linux, it's the hardware manufacturers. Still, you need to consider it before buying the device
HP Reverb G2 for me. Still waiting on Monado to get it fully working but no such luck yet. Hugely appreciative to the dev team for all of their amazing work, of course.
Audio gear.
Peripheral devices, mostly. I have some half-supported, like Logitech mouse (G-shift doesn't work), and for some I rely on open-source devs (like Corsair keyboard for certain keys/modes/connectivity fix). Sure, you can say just buy compatible devices, but it's not always viable to replace everything you owned before moving to Linux.
Asus Zenbook DUO
I'll be honest, A lot more of it works than I expected. Linux runs and is quite stable.
Keyboard Backlighting? Had to write some Python. Windows driver manages this, proprietary. I still can't get backlight to work in bluetooth mode.
Trackpad Palm Rejection? Had to write a service. Windows driver manages this, proprietary.
Function keys on the keyboard in wired mode? Not supported, no work-around that I can find. I have to remove the keyboard and put it into bluetooth mode. Windows driver.
ohh shit, now that this reminded me to look, someone's done something about it
https://github.com/zakstam/zenbook-duo-linux
Now I just need to figure out how to wedge that into nixos
Broadcom hardware (WiFi cards an webcams in particular). Plus there are quirks with some proprietary driver version not building against some kernel version...
With unsupported hardware and closed drivers you are always on the lookout for some breakage.
And it's not a Linux problem nor a complaint on distro maintainers. It's manufacturers that are shit.
I've got a SpaceMouse Pro that, although useable with Blender, I haven't been able to get it working as well as it did on windows, but I think that's the only device I had any trouble with so far.
Lenovo thinkbook 16 G7 iml
Yes it's a POS. It wasn't my choice. Work laptop.
I've got some LianLi case fans that aren't supported by anything Linux that I've been able to find. I run a barebones VM just to control their features.
What case are you using? I've got a LianLi Lancool 216. It's a little loud but it runs just fine for me.
Off the top of my head, my case is a LianLi O11, but I was talking about my case fans, which are... Oh lord, their naming is so obnoxious, the... TM LCDs I think?
What Linux kernel are you running which isn't supporting your hardware?
My case: I have an nvidia GTX 980. It's old but it's what I have.
Nvidia dropped its support from driver version 595.
Driver 580 is what I need, it worked until 7.0 but no longer in 7.1 (was using Fedora 44). Since my hardware is old I switched to Debian Trixie.
Another example is the facetime HD Webcam of macbook pro: to make it work you have to install OSx or download a recovery image, compile a C program to extract a specific binary blob, then use that blob to recompile the driver on your kernel.
There are lots of examples: it's a big world, with lots of hardware and mostly no producer interested in the Linux world.
This depends a bit on the distro you are using. Like in arch you should not use the proprietary drivers for older cards but the open ones. My guess is there are some community drivers you should use instead.
you mean the nouveau driver? the one that is unable to up the frequencies from the minimum because it is not signed by nvidia? it may work as a display output, but not much else
Even if you happen to use older NVidia cards from before they started doing signed firmware blobs the experience is miserable.
Nouveau has 0 dynamic power management, so the only way to change clocks speeds is via a debug interface in /sys/.
Everytime you change clock speeds the driver can crash. And while some software does become usable it tends to be very unstable because some features are just not implemented or only half-implemented, leading to graphical glitches and unpredictable behaviour.
It's a shame because I really feel like nouveau could be a great piece of software, but unfortunately nobody is working on it anymore.
😆😂🤣 Are you kidding? Have you tried using nouveau? It works, sure, but you can’t play games that are even vaguely modern and if something uses up a bit too much RAM the entire display system starts jittering/lagging or becomes unresponsive. Source: I ran nouveau with a GTX 2080 for years. I was only able to fully ditch Windows once I fully ditched Nvidia (by switching to an AMD GPU and scrubbing every last vestige of Nvidia’s bullshit off my PC).
For desktop? Probably. For laptop, linux support can be awful, because manufacturers keep introducing hardware that don't support standard drivers. Webcam? How about an IPU6 that needs kernel modules just to be detected and then special calibration files just so the image is not a stripey corrupted mess... How about no on-board sound because screw you I guess. How about a non standard USB controller so that you cannot even communicate over your USB ethernet dongle when the wifi is once again some special sauce non standard shit...
These are Dell and Lenovo Yoga machines at the University I work at. Some are absolute garbage where the USB is always powered and will drain the battery when the computer is turned off and no BIOS setting will disable this.
We are now looking into Tuxedo and Framework...
PS.: even windows has issues with these, where you have no touchpad and no USB anything (mouse, keyboard) until you somehow install a driver...
Yeah laptop hardware is garbage to deal with
Psht. I wish! This is wrong and will set people up for failure. There is absolutely hardware that will work well with Linux and hardware that will not.
I tend to run into problems with brand new laptops. Microphones don't work, web cams don't work, fingerprint readers don't work.
I have a Dell Dell Pro next to me with a web cam that doesn't work. Arch, btw.
I also have a Lenovo T14 where everything does work.
The point is you have to RESEARCH before you buy. Otherwise, you're gonna get mad a Linux for not supporting your hardware, instead of being mad at yourself for not researching first.
Hardware that's too old is problematic and hardware that's too new can be problematic.
And unsurprisingly my framework laptop works perfectly under Linux
Unfortunately this is not true. If manufacturers do not support Linux, then it is up to dedicated community members to reverse engineer drivers. Much love to these amazing people ❤️
Things have gotten much better in recent years because now Linux is seen as a legitimate operating system and not just a platform for hobbyists.
except when the manufacturer puts effort into locking out reverse engineers through cryptography.
fuck you, nvidia!
There's still tons of devices where Linux doesn't work properly with them.
My Intel wireless cards cannot maintain a 6ghz wireless connection for shit despite some of them being over 5 years old. And Intel. Latest stuff, older kernels, none work well. Oddly whatever version of Fedora I had worked the best. My wifi wasn't unusable when 6ghz was an option. It only dropped to 5/2.4ghz once a minute instead of every 5-20 seconds.
For me any Wi-Fi drops were solved by disabling power saving in NetworkManager
Create a conf file:
sudo nano /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi-powersave.confAdd this into the config file:
Then restart
NetworkManageror reboot your systemI tried this but it didn't seem to help. Mostly because it only wants to use 5ghz. I think I tried doing a bunch of "fixes" so maybe I should just start fresh. This is on my testing machine that I don't use regularly so only god knows what I've done to it.
Also did you do this on a laptop with S0 standby? How does that affect sleep?
My guess is that you are noticing the difference between new and old kernels
Sure, but that doesn't change that it's regressed since that one version and still hasn't been re fixed.
If the old (or LTS) version of the kernel doesn't support something newer, and the new version of the kernel does, that would not be a regression.
I learned this when Skylake first came out. Ubuntu LTS didn't work on it because it was an old kernel and this was new hardware. If you have new hardware, use a new kernel.
This Fedora version was a year+ ago. Even on 7.0 wifi is unusable on my machines if I have 6ghz enabled.
it does not sound like its the new version that is better for them. more like an older version was better, newer is worse.