What type of hardware do you look for?

[spydie]

I seem to be heading away from M$.
First I heard about Firebird 0.7 browser.
Then tried Thunderbird email.
Then I read a post someplace about how great this OS called Knoppix was

The more I use all the above the more I think about how I don't really need M$, but as I sit here at my computer and look around I see M$ on my mouse, M$ on my joystick and M$ sticker on my computer saying "Designed for M$ windows xp"

M$ is all around me,

So what do you hard core non-M$ people do when you need a mouse or some other peice of hardware and don't what to buy it from M$?

[turbinater]

So what do you hard core non-M$ people do when you need a mouse or some other peice of hardware and don't what to buy it from M$

I simply dont buy anything Microsoft makes. I even scratched off that hidious windows logo on my keyboard, and replaced it with a penguin sticker.

[Cuddles]

Oh that is funny - penguin stickers

I fell in love with Tux the first time I laid eyes on the logo in the boot screen.

As for looking for products other than MS, mice are made by other companies; like Logitech. Keyboards do come from "no name" companies. Even joysticks are made by some serious "not MS" companies.

For me, its not so much the hardware issue, it the OS and all of its junk associated with it - You gotta buy the OS, if you want to do any "office" work, you gotta buy the Office software, if you want to develope any programs, you gotta buy the developing software, yadda yadda yadda - and all this does? Make you more poor, and the big conglomerate, bigger. Some of the "packages" get expensive. Standard Win98 is around $99, Office Suite is somewhere around three figures, and developing software is easily mid-three figures. Sometimes I think MS is seriously padding their prices to make them only able to be purchased by big companies with unlimited budgets. If MS makes a good keyboard, I don't care, if the price is fair, and it works for non-MS systems. If the mouse is the same, then, ok, I can buy it. Same for anything MS makes - I NOW draw the line at the OS level though. Linux is my choice in that area now.

Cuddles

[baldyeti]

Oh that is funny - penguin stickers :)

Help yourself, then ;-) Oops, I just realised these are no penguins, but a little debian promo can't hurt!

[turbinater]

Help yourself, then Oops, I just realised these are no penguins, but a little debian promo can't hurt!

I already have those exact debian stickers on all my cases. I thought I saw penguin stickers when I went there.

[rickenbacherus]

I've never had an issue with any Logitech products on my Linux boxen. There is some info on Linux compatibility here.

Some companies have good reputations for working w/ Linux. Some of my favorites are Toshiba (a relative newcomer to Linux) and nvidia among others. http://www.linux-usb.org/ is another great reference for finding hardware that works with Linux.

[baldyeti]

I thought I saw penguin stickers when I went there.

They have some, just not very alluring....