What is said in that link is true but I feel there is another factor.

At home I almost exclusively use Ubuntu, haven't had W2K fired up in over a
month. At work I use XP on a Dell that is about 3 years old. A co-worker
said to me the other day, "you like Linux, you like the hacking, but the
problem with Linux is most people, including myself, only want to turn it on
and us it, buy a piece of software and install it should we need it but not
hunt and DL and compile and figure out what is wrong and make corrections
before it will work. Sure free software is nice but when I consider the time
I spend it isn't.

My opinion, what is needed is for where ever we buy the computer Dell, HP,
Circuit City, Best Buy or LocalComuterStore, they could keep track of each
computer they sell by S/N. When we need software or hardware they have a
list they have set up that will work on our particular computer. If we are
purchasing hardware to work on or with out computer see if it is on their
list and supported. If not and we can't find a sub or already have a certain
piece of hardware is if they can set up software/drivers that will support
it.

I see that HP now has support for an HP printer I got for Xmas 2007. When I
got the printer they had no support. Apparently HP doesn't want to loose the
Linux market just because they didn't take a little time to compile a
driver/software.

How about out of box support of a wireless Ethernet adaptor? I got one to
work but . . .