"Paul Johnson" wrote in message
...
Scott in Baltimore wrote:

Or not. I can go into any store and pick out almost any hardware, plug
it
in, and it Just Works(tm). No screwing around with chasing down
drivers:
It either Just Works(tm), or rarely, Just Doesn't. I'm an NT
administrator: It's a pain in the ass to get hardware to work under
windows compared to Linux these days.

NT is old stuff. 2000 works great and XP knows all the hardware.

2000 and XP *is* NT (and even Windows itself in the registry and some
other
places refer to those versions as NT5 and NT6 respectively). And no, it
doesn't know all the hardware. If I plug something in with Windows, I've
only got about a 1 in 3 chance of it working, and even less if the machine
is not online and can't hit Windows Update to find a driver. And even at
that point, there's probably some finagling involved to make it work as
advertised or securely (well, as securely as Windows can do anything, and
keeping Windows secure is a fulltime job in itself...).

Debian works spot on on the first try for the vast majority of hardware it
supports, without going through driver hell. Plug, and you're done.

--
Paul Johnson

Even with Microsoft's own products I have problems with installation. I have
a Microsoft wireless keyboard and mouse that I cannot get to work properly.
The keyboard will work but the mouse is sporadic at best.