Deciding whether a particular computer is a good candidate for installing GNU/Linux can involve a nightmare of details about hardware compatibility. Nor is assembling a custom computer on which to run GNU/Linux any easier. In both cases, you need to evaluate video cards, sound cards, printers, scanners, digital camera, wireless cards, and mobile devices for compatibility with the operating system. Fortunately, help is available.
True, hardware support for GNU/Linux has improved greatly in the last decade. Today you can pick out any computer system and stand a strong chance of having it work out of the box with your distribution of choice. Yet enough gaps in support remain that doing research before buying remains a sensible idea.
