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?
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.
I have been fine with both Canon and Lexmark and also a Brother unit that someone in my family owns that their new Win11 machine refused to talk to; I opened up my ASUS t-pad with Ubuntu and printed in five seconds.
But yeah CUPS has actually caused many a headache to the point that I’ve disabled it on some units.
CUPs is simply ancient. It’s due for an overhaul; I keep expecting someone to come along and Poettering it, only I’d hope without also making it take over cron jobs and logging.
I’m not Linux-savvy enough to understand everything you said lol. But I’m glad at least that I don’t have to rely on CUPS I just have two printers with static IPs so it’s easy-breezy George and 'Weezy.
Not sure if it technically counts as fingerprint readers but using my YubiKey Bio daily, for login on my desktop and WebAuthN and… 0 problem.
I think that’s because Yubikey handles the fingerprint reader part, not Linux, right? As far as Linux goes, it’s a black box security fob - but I might be wrong about that.
Indeed hence my warning. I’m only sharing this alternative because in practice it works and it’s secure (AFAIK).
Edit :
IMHO that’s a feature, namely I do not want to OS to mess with this specific part of my setup. I do also have NitroKeys and FPGAs to tinker with but that’s different. FWIW if there is an OSHW&FLOSS alternative to the YubiKey Bio please do share.
I have spent literal hours of my life trying to get the fingerprint reader on a latitude 7400 to work and i just gave up lol. Passwords are underrated anyway.