On Wi-Fi buses, Wi-Fi food courts, and Wi-Fi libraries around Seattle
and Redmond, WA I see users running Ubuntu on Asus eeepc machines.
I've talked to a few. They're non-geeks running the eeepcs the way
they came from mail order or stores. They have Wi-Fi drivers
installed out of the box. These folks don't like the eeepc
keyboards. But they're not complaining about printer problems.
Presumably their machines contain wrappers making the drivers install
ok.

If my encounters are typical, the number of non-geeks buying laptops
with Linux installed should send a pretty clear message to
manufacturers.