Hardware Hell. That's the really big problem with alternative OSes, not including Macs. It's especially frustrating for newbies when they like Distro A but it doesn't support a thingamajig they can't afford to replace (and I'd like to add that it seems like the developers forget that some of us are *poor* since the typical response one gets is go buy such-and-such), but Distro B does support it, even though Distro B is older than Distro A. I believe hardware issues are the real problem for Linux users. The kicker is, there often is a driver for a piece of hardware for your system, but then you have to find it and figure out how to install it (sometimes that's fairly easy and sometimes it's not; Debian/Knoppix supports my ethernet card, fortunately, but in the manual for it are instructions for getting it to run with Mandrake and RH - I've no idea what language that's in, perhaps some scientific code from the 24th century).

What we need is an add-on to apt (or up2date, or whatever) that updates and searches specifically for drivers. Obviously, a list would need to be kept on in your configuration file for the hardware that was detected during setup. This would be convenient even if all of your hardware is supported, as it would get you the latest drivers easily.

Whaddya think?

Another little thing that bugs me. Why is it so difficult to adjust your screen size with most distros? Linux treats 1024 as the default (and is that really a good idea? A lot of us have small monitors and/or not-so-good eyesight) and as I understand it, you have to edit a config file to change it if you didn't specify 800x600 during the install. Windows 98, a 6 year old OS, can change your screen settings easier than that. I know it's a little thing, but it annoys me, mostly because I have a small monitor and a TV out card; I don't want 800x600 on a 24" TV screen, but my regular monitor is so small that I can't see anything with a 1024 setting. And it seems rather primitive, doesn't it?

Other than those two things, I think Linux is perfect. Sure, maybe Wine doesn't work so great without a lot of fiddling with it, but I'm sure it'll get better. People used to complain about installing Linux, and a few distros are still difficult to install, but more are as brian-dead easy as Windows now, as long as you know something about what hardware you have and where you are.