One almost unavoidable problem with using an operating system that is not used by the majority of people is compatibility, specifically hardware compatibility. While Linux supports an amazing number of devices out of the box and chances are if you put Linux on any random computer it will, for the most part, work, there are still many cases where having information about hardware compatibility can be useful. For example, suppose you are having trouble with a particular component and want to know if others have made it work or suppose you are buying a new part for your PC. This is where numerous sites that aim to provide information on the compatibility of hardware come in. Unfortunately, despite the large number of these sites, I often find that these sites are often not very useful. In this article I will define what a good site must have and look at a number of sites to see if they meet these standards.

Checklist for the Perfect Site

So what does a perfect Linux hardware compatibility site need? There are two major categories. First, having the information and, second, making it possible to find the information. In fact, as long as users can submit new information, the first part is not relevant unless the second part is implemented well. So the question is, what ways does a good site need to offer for searching through the information?

• By specific product names – This is the most obvious and is done well by most site. This would be useful to someone who is having trouble with a particular product or is looking at buying a specific product.
• By best compatibility – This is done by some sites, but not all. Although searching by the specific product is good if you already know what you want to buy, if you don’t yet know what you want to get, finding the device with the best compatibility could help you decide.
• By the features of each product – This is where every site I looked at fails. This feature comes in use when you want something specific, but don’t know exactly what product to buy. For example, suppose I wanted a black and white laser printer that had wireless networking. I could search for every single printer that fit those criteria or I could look at all the compatible printers and check each for the features I wanted, but both those approaches would take forever.

Grading the sites

Now that we have a way to grade each site, lets start looking at the sites.

LinuxQuestions HCL

Specific Product Name – Check!
Best Compatibility – No
Features – No

Linux Compatible

Specific Product Name – Check!
Best Compatibility – Check!
Features – No

Hardware4Linux

Specific Product Name – No
Best Compatibility – Check!
Features – No

As you can see, none of the sites I found scored well. In fact, I found even more sites that do not provide any search features at all that I did not include. If you think I incorrectly scored a site listed above or you know of a site that scores better than these sites, please leave a comment!