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You'll always find the odd usb controlled nerf gun turret or whatnot that lacks a driver, but that's not really an issue for most people.

http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/showdev.php?id=4022
http://www.thok.org/intranet/python/usb/README.html

A list of mini-laptops with comparisons:
http://www.mbnet.fi/tuoteseuranta/index.aspx?rrid=1

Availability was scarce in verkkokauppa:
http://www.verkkokauppa.com/?page=http://www.verkkokauppa.com/main.php?path=tietokoneet%2Fkannettavat&title=Tietokoneet+/+Kannettavat&search=1&cat1=Tietokoneet&cat2=Kannettavat&cat3=Linux

Some sell Acer aspire one: http://hintaseuranta.fi/tuote.aspx/171402

Here's Asus:
http://hintaseuranta.fi/tuote.aspx/164709

Lenovo T61 is pricier:
http://hintaseuranta.fi/tuote.aspx/81991

MSI wind:
http://hintaseuranta.fi/tuote.aspx/79914

You can check driver availability to about any laptop, even if it doesn't have linux preinstalled:
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/

My personal choice would be Asus Eee PC 901. Enough CPU and SSD-drives which are more tolerant to shaking and movement, in addition of being fast.
To play DVDs, an external drive would be needed:
http://www.verkkokauppa.com/popups/prodinfo.php?id=2585 ..commenting in the order that the device is supposed to work with Linux.

DVD-drive compatibility chart:
http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/search_res.php?pattern=dvd

And please don't tell me about SDL, because it severely behind any modern gaming needs.

This sounds suspicious to me. However, I'm not a game developer, so I don't know what modern needs SDL and OpenAL can't fulfill. It doesn't seem to me that games have changed much in the input, sound, and networking departments since Q3A. I see the advances being made in graphics and physics, which would be handled by OpenGL and (if you aren't writing your own physics engine) another library like OGRE or ODE. On another platform, wouldn't you be using something like Havok2?

-Linux is fragmented. It is just not possible to know if a game could run in any distro.

Statically compiled games run in just about any distro. See the Loki catalog for examples of games that still install and run today.

-Linux licensing schemes are a fear factor for commercial developers.

This is a matter of education, and is not a technical limitation. There is very little to fear about the licenses used for Linux software, especially for game developers.

-Linux does not have hardware drivers for peripherals like controllers and others.

I believe you are woefully uninformed on this one. I'm having a hard time coming up with a peripheral other than a gamepad, joystick, wheel/pedals, or dance pad that would be required for gaming, and I think you'll find all of the above with Linux support. Especially if it's a gameport device; those are growing few, and Linux support for them has matured.

For USB devices, a good place to start would be the Linux USB Device Overview.

-Linux runs on non-80x86 machines, many of which are totally different platforms.

Why do you have to support all of the architectures supported by Linux to produce a Linux game? I can't think of a commercial Linux game that makes that claim. Games have system requirements. One system requirement for your game might be an x86 processor.

I don't think these are really obstacles to Linux game development.

This sounds like an interesting book, and I'll probably buy it, but looking over the Table of Contents, this book is geared more toward Linux Multimedia Management (PVR, mp3s) than doing actual recording and capturing.

I'm a podcaster trying to figure out the best way to input mike/mixer into my linux laptop, and had the damnest time figuring out.

Mastering the software stuff is easy (relatively speaking). Much harder is figuring out how to get your hardware to work. About the best resource I've found for that is this usb device database . Under each multimedia device are user comments about how they made it work.

Also, a few months ago I reviewed a book, Digital Video Hacks. More about video production than linux, the book nonetheless a few things from a linux perspective. Highly recommended!

On another note, why hasn't anyone published a decent GIMP manual yet? The last book is a good three years old, and a lot has happened to gimp since then. I would love to see a Gimp Hacks book sometime. I could really use that!

Yes, this is all wonderful and amazing that we have Linux software for videoconferencing but...

How do we actually use the stuff when it's near to impossible to get any off-the-shelf webcam to actually have driver support in Linux?

Seriously, this is one FAQ I really wish was in huge bold typeface on the sites for GnomeMeeting and similar projects:

WHERE DO I GET HARDWARE THAT WILL LET ME USE THIS PROGRAM?

What kind of cameras are the people who hack on these chat clients using, how expensive are they, are they still on the market, can you get them in Australia and New Zealand, what Linux distribution do you need to be running to have out-of-the-box hardware support without compiling from source, etc.

There's the Qbik list, but it's pretty cryptic and not always up to date, and I've not yet got a simple straight list of 'these models of cameras work with GnomeMeeting, go buy them'. Why is this so hard? Why can't it be in the software FAQ? It's the number one question on every potential user's mind, surely.

Another camera we tested that is "plug and play" for recent 2.4 and all all 2.6 kernels are camera based on the se401 module. In our next release of LavaRnd, we will be adding support for Kensington VideoCAM PC Camera model 67014. This camera is already supported as a normal webcam ... we are just getting around to making it a reference LavaRnd entropy source because someone donated one to the project. These cameras seem to sell from $25 to $41 US. Specs suggest that models 67015 thru 67017 should work as well as model 67014; although we have only tested the 67014 model.

When properly "mis-tuned" and lens capped, these webcams make good entropy sources. And of course, they take reasonable pictures when they are used as they were originally intended to be used. :-)

Our list is by no means complete. There are others we are sure. If anyone has another other well supported webcams, please chime in ...

Yes, there is a website for linux USB device support

One list here of USB webcams supported in linux.

Here you find webcams that need the Philips drivers.

I suggest you go find the cheapest three webcams, look them up in the USB devices database if they work with Linux, and then use motion to get the images.

USB support in Windows has nothing to do with Windows? WTF

What software were you trying with the digital camera? My wife got a digital camera with USB interface and I thought it might work as a mass storage device, but in fact it doesn't support any standard device class. So I got a card reader, which showed up but returned errors to almost all commands. The vendor claimed to have a Linux driver for it but never did get round to sending me it... Eventually I discovered gphoto2 and the problem was solved. Check their list of supported cameras. If your camera isn't on there and you have to go for a card reader, see the Linux-USB mass storage device list. Be aware that the chips inside products can change without the name changing, so these lists don't guarantee compatibility of a given product.

The wlan-ng project has early stage support for the wusb12 card.
More details available @ the Linux-USB device site.

Luckily they don't use the hideous Broadcom chipset, which still does not have Linux support, even though it's sold in Dell, Linksys, Belkin and Apple (new Powerbooks, anyone?) wireless products, to name but a few. *grr*

I had to use a USB-to-serial converter with my iBook last time to use an external modem with Linux. Yes, the internal modem is now some sort of USB device that would not work under Linux :(

Under Darwin you get a binary modem driver.

Any supported USB-to-serial device listed here should work under Linux. The funny thing is most of them would still not work under Mac OS X - as they say, in MacOS your device either works out of the box or not at all..

Sold that iBook in the end, I need vector-based computation muscle for my ... err... video transcoding :p Neat machine though.

If you don't need any inputs or digital connectors, there's also the Xitel An-1, which I've not tried but is only $40. Ignore all the minidisc talk if you like; it's just a USB-to-analog audio converter. I don't have one myself, but the linux-usb database says it works.
--
// mlc, user 16290

A lot of people posted here that they never had these problems, but I'm sure they will take the rebates.

I personally won't, mainly because I can't think for the life of me what I'd do with them. :) I already have more Zip disks than I'll ever need (I just use them to copy files between home and school) and have access to two drives if one of them fails.

I'm kinda (really; really) pissed that the dumb ass lawyers settled for rebates.

Lawyers have a bad rep here on slashdot, but they are smarter than you think - they're not being paid with rebates, they get cold, hard cash. $4.7 million of it if the court approves... If you REALLY don't like it, you can appear at the court hearing and ask the judge to alter their compensation. :) June 8, 2001, at 10 am, in the Superior Court of Delaware, 1020 N. King Street, Wilmington, DE 19801.

Will the USB zip drive work with linux?

Supposedly... http://www.qbik.ch/usb/devices/showdv.php3?id=28

There are several USB video devices listed in this Linux USB video list.

You end up on this site, and the "device overview" and "Networking" links show you this USB Networking frame.

You end up on this site, and the "device overview" and "Networking" links show you this USB Networking frame.

The link to the table of working devices in the parent comment is broken (it points at the root Slashdot page), but never fear. Here's the right stuff: Linux-USB device overview. Surf on!