this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2025
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Original question by @ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world

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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[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 3 points 3 days ago

A lot of Broadcom cards are supported, so you either have a missing driver/firmware blob or some really bad luck.

Historically, phone line modems were very often unsupported (some people may remember the term "winmodem"), but hardly anyone uses them anymore, so the problem has effectively gone away. Older consumer-grade printers that didn't speak Postscript, ditto. I own a very old TV capture card of the analog type that has never been supported, but probably won't work with modern Windows either.

Modern hardware is more likely to be supported unless it's too niche to attract developers, or too bleeding-edge for its protocol to have been reverse-engineered yet.