[BadVista Advocate] GNU/Linux Hardware Configurations

[Fred Okuma]

I think 
<http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw>http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw is a 
good starting point but I need more compatibility-list-for-dummies 
thing.  It will look like:

(example)
		Fedora	Ubuntu	debian
-------------------------------------------------
Dell model a	ok	ng	ok
Dell model b	ng	ok	ok
HP model a	ok	ng	no sound
HP model b	ok	screen resolution 1024 or less only
...
(this will be very big and terribly labor-intensive to make. Does 
someone already maintaining such table?)

Device-by-device compatibility listings are great and so are 
distro-by-distros. Even they tell you if your machine or card will be 
compatible with any derivative of GNU/Linux, I won't, or supposedly 
many would-be-Linux-convert people won't, either, bother to look for 
that geeky compatibility tables.

Also, I vote for please-don't-let-me-text-edit-xorg.conf camp. GUI 
settings are better than  text editing for many non-geek people, I 
believe, you don't have to remember bunch of
parameter names or conf file names with, who knows, their pathnames.

Newbie Linuxers like me definitely need local support, preferably 
face-to-face. (I am lucky to have such a person but still have spent 
3+ years before switching to GNU/Linux.) Pointers to local user 
groups will help people make decision to leave MicroSoft behind. (Oh, 
I don't use Micro$oft here because money is only the second problem 
with them. MS is suffocating us in many ways.)

As for Macs, my inclination is 'leave them alone.' Mac OS is 
proprietary, that is bad but unless Apple tries to take our freedom 
away deliberately,  it's not a big enemy and we want to save our 
resources.  It's my assumption that Apple is not doing evil but 
correct me if I'm wrong. (Although Apple does not grant our freedom 
intentionally, either, right?)

Fred