this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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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?

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[–] sxan@midwest.social 22 points 10 hours ago (13 children)

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.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 6 points 9 hours ago (4 children)

Intel Arc discrete GPUs released 2022

[–] mat@linux.community 2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Hmm, I run an Arc GPU at work without any issues. Just using plain mesa on NixOS. The Intel devs were quite responsive when we ran into issues as well.

[–] Flatfire@lemmy.ca 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Arc support was added after release to Linux Kernel 6.2 and it's steadily improved since. Older Linux distros, or "LTS" oriented distros that favour stability may still not have support for them. I know Unraid was very slow to pick up on it and I had to settle for passing the pcie device through to a VM to get it working. Intel is keen to made these viable though, and I love having the AV1 encoder from my A380.

[–] mat@linux.community 1 points 3 hours ago

Ah I see, haven't been on "stable" distros for a long time so I wasn't affected. I've enjoyed the good support and the video stuff is definitely nice. On the AMD side, still no idea how to encode or decode anything on my Framework 16, meanwhile Intel is acing it.

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