No, but every year they do increase tuition. The amount you owe for last years education won't change (other than interest payments), but the amount you pay this years is more, by a lot more than inflation. A large part of that is they can because people just get a bigger loan, if people would drop out in numbers (doesn't have to be large, just enough to impact the bottom line) schools would be forced to reconsider how they spend money.
No, this guy built a device to mess with his own property. So long as he is only using it for legal, ethical purposes I have no problem with it. If he were using it on unsuspecting random people, then he should be jailed.
I have in my house right now a device that can not just mess with people 3 miles away, but actually kill them. So does a large percentage of the population, but I don't try that because it is unethical. (Never mind that I'm not a good enough shot to hit at even 1 mile) Same thing, its not what you can do with a device, it is what you do do.
I know several people who have fallen off a house, the lucky ones were able to continue work that day. It happens every once in a while in construction. Not something you want to happen to you, but rarely deadly. Often you will strain something, or break a bone. However if they have done their engineering correctly the total damage compared to the risk means that this really isn't something to worry about.
5 years, which is standard, at least for the university I went to. Graduated in 98, so it wasn't that long ago.
I wasn't making $5/hr at the time though, see they start you are minimum wage, but they give raises once in a while. I knew I needed more money than that, so I went for the management position, which was worth more money yet. I was making more than $6/hr when I quit (and I'm glad to be gone, though I miss some of the fringe benefits like working with girls) they offered me $8/hr then, but a job with computers beats it.
Truthfully, if I had decided to stay with McDonalds as my career, there would never have been a year where I made less money that what I've made since. Store managers make pretty good money, and they made it clear the only reason they didn't offer me that position was they knew I wouldn't take it.
No arguments about what it does to your socal life, I had no time for anything other than school and work. I never said otherwise. I think it was worth it.
Student loans are only a good deal when you do not factor in all the tuition increases they throw at you because you don't pay the cost now.
Personally I think everyone would be better off if financial aid was illegal, including aid from parents. When kids have to work to put themselves through school maybe they will appreciate it... If nothing else this would bring competition into schools. Is a MIT education really 10 times better than a public university? (YMMV, MIT is very good)
You assume that people can up and move at the drop of a hat (no home to sell, no 9 months left on the lease), and all neighborhoods are equal. I had a nice job, so I bought a nice house near enough for me. They the company closed that branch and laid everyone off... Now I have a nice job an hour (on a perfect day, which never happens) from home, but in a company that admits to not having enough money to last more than a few months. (The plan is to get more money from investers, but I've seen investers pull out at the last minute before)
Is your daughter really that submissive that when you tell her not to go to college she really wouldn't? I hope she finds a nice guy to support her, cause her only chance for a good life is that the guy who takes her is nice. (as opposed to a jerk who will beat her, and it seems most of the guys who want a submissive wife want to beat her)
I paid my own college by working at McDonalds on weekends. I graduated with no Debt! Didn't cost my parents much either (dad paid my car insurance which was a nice benefit, but that is all) I could have paid for everything from loans if I wanted to, but I hate debt so I made the choice to not graduate with any. Your daughter could too if she put her mind to it.
Have you ever installed windows yourself instead of using the preinstalled version? I has a machine at work with a "designed for windows 2000" sticker on it. No harddrive or RAM, but I found some that would fit from other machines. Grabbed my MSDN win2000 CD and went at it. Well I got windows installed. No network, and 640x480 display. I had to pry the heatsink off the northbridge to find the correct numbers, which then a google search found drivers.
Could your grandma do that? Mine can't either, so I guess our grandma's cannot install windows either!
Contrast that with linux. I bought a wifi card, and got a message to the effect of: linux as detected a foo card, which is known not to work well, try visiting this website for help. In other words linux was smart enough to know something didn't work!
them: what did you say to your wife on such and such data by pgpphone?
me: I plead the fifth
them:we repealed the fifth long ago
me:I still plead the fifth. You can get my pgp-phone key when you pry it out of my brain.
Though the above assumes I find a girl dumb enough to marry me that I can stand being around....
Troture be brought up, but my solution to that is to start lieing, starting with obvious lies, and getting more creative. Sure they will get the truth from me eventilly(If they don't kill me first), but by then they will have so many lies they won't believe it.
The biggest difference between the US and Europe as far as I can tell from the US is that our plans are so cheap everyone leaves their cell phone on all the time, and has no problem answering it even though caller pays. (as a benefit of this it is illegal to call a cell phone in the US for advertising!) In Europe calls to cell phones are apparently so expensive nobody uses their cell phone for voice calls, prefering to deal with a difficult interface to SMS. (granted SMS is expensive in the US, but considering how cheap a phone call is I don't think SMS would get much popularity here even if it was cheap)
From my cell phone I can call ANY other phone in the US for no extra charge. When I was last in Europe I got a cell phone to carry with me, and nobody was willing to call it because it was from out of the country. A state in the US is equivalent to a country in Europe as far as size. I honestly did not get people's unwillingness to call me on that phone, cause in the US nobody would think twice about it anymore. In fact most people I know are shocked when someone does worry about calling an out of state number cause nearly everyone can do it for free from their cell phone.
Anyone who lives in Alabama ought to be writting a letter to their state representatives asking what is up there. Reports that someone is missusing their computer shouldn't have been ignored in the first place. The state of Alabama needs to completely change that department. Start with replacing the cabinet person responsible for transportation. (I'm guessing this is a cabinet level position, but I don't know how that state government works)
Then do a massive layoff, since most of the upper management obviously needs to go.
We can argue the ethics of what this guy did, but I'm having problems finding anyone ethical in this story. Not the supervistor who ignored the report (if it wasn't ignored either the behavior would have stopped, or the boss would have been fired before this guy finished 6 months of screen grabbing). Not the boss playing solitare instead of the job he should do. Even if he can do his job in 1 hour a week, it is unethical to not find other work that needs to be done for the other 49. This guy is perhaps most ethical, as a admin his job is to watch the state's computers. (but perhaps because I don't know that state) This isn't a private machine he was spying on.
If the supervisors were doing their job, this would have never got this far, because they would have repramanded the boss right away. Then either the boss would have changed so nothing would need to be done, or he wouldn't and they would know to fire him. Most people I know have done something stupid like this at work (including a number of you reading this at work), but when it becomes a problem the boss is supposed to notice and tell you to change before it becomes time to fire you.
Maybe. If he is buying pump ethanol, then it likely is E85 and you are right. If he is using special order ethanol, then he can get 195 proof (the rest is water, and some poison to denature it) and run entirely on ethanol with no gasonline input. I didn't read the article though, so I don't know which.
When I took first aid and CPR I was told that I was not qualified to evaluate the legitimacy of any do not recusitate order. I could not legally help someone who could verbally refuse help, but as soon as that person went unconscience it was illegal for me to not help, even if that person had been begging me to let them die.
Someone unconscience is automaticly assumed to want all the help you can give, until prooven otherwise. Since I can't tell the difference between a proper do not recusitate form, and a forgery (done by the mod just before they murder someone for example...) I was to assume all were invalid.
The EMT who trained me told me that they generally were under the same orders, unless someone could pull out a previously signed order. It wasn't until the emergency room was reached that anyone had the responsibility to check for such orders.
True, but the people have one advantage that those in Washington worry about: votes. When people start informing themselves about issues (all the issues, not just abortion, or just copyrights, but every single one!) and make informend choices, instead of voting for whoever has the most memorable adds, or who looks best on TV things will change. Start with yourself, make sure you vote, and vote based on what they will do (and in case of those with a history anywhere, what they have done). Or if you can't bother to do that, stay home and let those who care vote. (Just beware that we might decide to ruin your life while your not looking, a chance you take)
I check my gas milage regularly. My truck (Chevy s10 with 4.3l v6) gets 23 mpg at 65MPH towing a boat, and 19 mpg at 55MPH unloaded. I've checked these conditions often enough to not belive there is any statistical problems with them.
My car (geo metro) gets 44mpg in the normal mix of city/hiway that I drive to work. I've recorded 49-51 at constant hiway speeds (55 or 65), but don't have enough samples to make any comment on what speed is best.
Sure you sure wind resistance goes up by cube of speed? I recall it only being square, but I'm not sure where to look that up anymore.
You are incorrect, 3DES normally uses just 2 keys, A-B-A. There is a known attack on 2DES (read other posters for an explanation, I'm not going to repeat what they said better than I can) making 2Des where you use encrypt with A, then B equivalent to a 57 bit total key length. 3Des defeats that attack and as used with 2 keys gives you 112 bits of equivalent key length.
There are many different ways to implement 3DES (and I know of no theoretical reason you couldn't use 3 different keys), the most common one is to encrypt with key A, then DECRYPT with key B, then encrypt with key A. Note that the middle step is decryption with the wrong key. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this is anymore. Nobody has used any form a DES for a few years now if they had any other choice.
While not near the penetration of S.K., those areas of the US also have broadband in most areas. If you want it and live in a densly populated area you can get it.
Look at the population density of North Dakota. I know someone who lives in a township (36 square miles) with a population of 95, and the next township over has only 17. (thats 2 square miles per person and some left over!) They are the ones without a good broadband option. they also only get 1 TV station, and then only on a good night. I think there is a radio station, but I've never heard them listen to it so I can't be sure. Do you have any good ideas for getting them broadband? They'd buy it, but only if it was affordable.
Sorry to burst your dream, but there are large areas of the US without any cell phone coverage. Not just no digital, not even some old clunky analog tower for a hundred miles. Course nobody lives in those areas, but they still exist.
Overall I agree, but you should be more careful with your examples. Considering Boston's big dig won't even be finished for a year or so yet it isn't fair to call it a failure yet.
Patents still expire in about 20 years. unlike say copyrights that will last longer than you will. Like something that Microsoft has patented, you can safely put it in open source 20 years from now, a long time, but most of us will live 20 more years. (barring the end of the world or some such of course)
So far Microsoft has just collected patents, generally only using them for defense. If the trend continues you might get by with using that Microsoft patented thing today since Microsoft doesn't really seem to care. I wouldn't because they might change at anytime, but history says you are likely to get away with it. Microsoft has threatened to start enforcing their patents, but so far nothing has come of it. (I can't recall any exceptions where Microsoft actually struck first, though they might exist)
Useability is not the same as learnability, except for the case of a kiosk where nobody uses it twice.
True useability goes beyond grandma using the machine the first time, to grandma emailing the grandkids daily (weekly or however often). True useability may even go so far as to time how long it takes to press each key, and re-arranging the keyboard to save 1/10th of a second. (AT&T did this once for their operators, a case where spending a couple days in training saves money in the long run once they know the new layout the saves the thousands of seconds per person per month)
Linux is very useable if you are a programmer. KDE is very useable if you use your computer daily. And if you have never used a computer before KDE/gnome is just as useable as windows. (each has its own quirks though) If you are an expert at windows linux and the desktops are not as useable at first, if you take the effort to learn them they are at least as useable, perhaps more so depending on what you want to do with them.
As an example: I ran spell check on this post and corrected 7 errors. (there may be more, but speelcheck didn't find them) This is much easier to do in KDE than in any other desktop I've used. However there is something else that you can do easily that I can't easily do in KDE.
Its not that no novels will be created, it is that authors have to eat, and that means (unless we have a communist/socialist society and it works...) working 40 hours a week doing something else, then finding time between meals, sleeping, and all those other things that have to be done, to write. Some have it in them and will do it. However that effort will burn them out, and most will never write again. Most do not. So we as a society offer an exchange: for a limited time you control the reproduction of your work, if you create it. Authors can choose how to sell their work then, and ideally this means they can earn enough to create more. As a bonus someone who proves an ability to write can get investors to advance them enough to finish the work, thus letting them create a good work.
Its a compromise. We want authors to create more than a couple hours a week (which is all that is left over from other tasks) so we give them the ability to sell their work.
You appear to have mixed up linux and windows in your post.
what obscure net driver he needs for his internal VIA network adapter.
It looks like you were putting down linux in the above, yet linux somehow manages to recognize those componants out of the box. I just installed windows 2k on a bunch of old machines, and had search for drivers. On one "designed for windows 2000 and ME) machine I was only able to figure out which driver to use after I pried the heatsink off the northbridge and googled the numbers on it! Linux somehow manages to find every adaptor, and just knows how to deal with most of the obscure hardware I throw at it. Last time I tried to use hardware that linux didn't support (a wireless network) linux told me that what it was, and that it didn't know how to use it!
Scrolling works on my USB mouse as soon as I plug it in. As soon as I tell linux what to do, it does it. Suse 9.1 pro is a nice distribution, these are not the days when slackware 3.0 is the most popular distribution anymore. If you want to do it all yourself linux will let you, but a good modern distribution solves the end user problems that linux used to have.
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No, but every year they do increase tuition. The amount you owe for last years education won't change (other than interest payments), but the amount you pay this years is more, by a lot more than inflation. A large part of that is they can because people just get a bigger loan, if people would drop out in numbers (doesn't have to be large, just enough to impact the bottom line) schools would be forced to reconsider how they spend money.
No, this guy built a device to mess with his own property. So long as he is only using it for legal, ethical purposes I have no problem with it. If he were using it on unsuspecting random people, then he should be jailed.
I have in my house right now a device that can not just mess with people 3 miles away, but actually kill them. So does a large percentage of the population, but I don't try that because it is unethical. (Never mind that I'm not a good enough shot to hit at even 1 mile) Same thing, its not what you can do with a device, it is what you do do.
see topic
I know several people who have fallen off a house, the lucky ones were able to continue work that day. It happens every once in a while in construction. Not something you want to happen to you, but rarely deadly. Often you will strain something, or break a bone. However if they have done their engineering correctly the total damage compared to the risk means that this really isn't something to worry about.
5 years, which is standard, at least for the university I went to. Graduated in 98, so it wasn't that long ago.
I wasn't making $5/hr at the time though, see they start you are minimum wage, but they give raises once in a while. I knew I needed more money than that, so I went for the management position, which was worth more money yet. I was making more than $6/hr when I quit (and I'm glad to be gone, though I miss some of the fringe benefits like working with girls) they offered me $8/hr then, but a job with computers beats it.
Truthfully, if I had decided to stay with McDonalds as my career, there would never have been a year where I made less money that what I've made since. Store managers make pretty good money, and they made it clear the only reason they didn't offer me that position was they knew I wouldn't take it.
No arguments about what it does to your socal life, I had no time for anything other than school and work. I never said otherwise. I think it was worth it.
Student loans are only a good deal when you do not factor in all the tuition increases they throw at you because you don't pay the cost now.
We can argue pluses an minuses all day...
Personally I think everyone would be better off if financial aid was illegal, including aid from parents. When kids have to work to put themselves through school maybe they will appreciate it... If nothing else this would bring competition into schools. Is a MIT education really 10 times better than a public university? (YMMV, MIT is very good)
You assume that people can up and move at the drop of a hat (no home to sell, no 9 months left on the lease), and all neighborhoods are equal. I had a nice job, so I bought a nice house near enough for me. They the company closed that branch and laid everyone off... Now I have a nice job an hour (on a perfect day, which never happens) from home, but in a company that admits to not having enough money to last more than a few months. (The plan is to get more money from investers, but I've seen investers pull out at the last minute before)
Is your daughter really that submissive that when you tell her not to go to college she really wouldn't? I hope she finds a nice guy to support her, cause her only chance for a good life is that the guy who takes her is nice. (as opposed to a jerk who will beat her, and it seems most of the guys who want a submissive wife want to beat her)
I paid my own college by working at McDonalds on weekends. I graduated with no Debt! Didn't cost my parents much either (dad paid my car insurance which was a nice benefit, but that is all) I could have paid for everything from loans if I wanted to, but I hate debt so I made the choice to not graduate with any. Your daughter could too if she put her mind to it.
Have you ever installed windows yourself instead of using the preinstalled version? I has a machine at work with a "designed for windows 2000" sticker on it. No harddrive or RAM, but I found some that would fit from other machines. Grabbed my MSDN win2000 CD and went at it. Well I got windows installed. No network, and 640x480 display. I had to pry the heatsink off the northbridge to find the correct numbers, which then a google search found drivers.
Could your grandma do that? Mine can't either, so I guess our grandma's cannot install windows either!
Contrast that with linux. I bought a wifi card, and got a message to the effect of: linux as detected a foo card, which is known not to work well, try visiting this website for help. In other words linux was smart enough to know something didn't work!
You seem to have mistaken anarchism for libertarianism.
Read both links carefully, and note that while what the author means is different from anarchy.
them: what did you say to your wife on such and such data by pgpphone?
me: I plead the fifth
them:we repealed the fifth long ago
me:I still plead the fifth. You can get my pgp-phone key when you pry it out of my brain.
Though the above assumes I find a girl dumb enough to marry me that I can stand being around....
Troture be brought up, but my solution to that is to start lieing, starting with obvious lies, and getting more creative. Sure they will get the truth from me eventilly(If they don't kill me first), but by then they will have so many lies they won't believe it.
The biggest difference between the US and Europe as far as I can tell from the US is that our plans are so cheap everyone leaves their cell phone on all the time, and has no problem answering it even though caller pays. (as a benefit of this it is illegal to call a cell phone in the US for advertising!) In Europe calls to cell phones are apparently so expensive nobody uses their cell phone for voice calls, prefering to deal with a difficult interface to SMS. (granted SMS is expensive in the US, but considering how cheap a phone call is I don't think SMS would get much popularity here even if it was cheap)
From my cell phone I can call ANY other phone in the US for no extra charge. When I was last in Europe I got a cell phone to carry with me, and nobody was willing to call it because it was from out of the country. A state in the US is equivalent to a country in Europe as far as size. I honestly did not get people's unwillingness to call me on that phone, cause in the US nobody would think twice about it anymore. In fact most people I know are shocked when someone does worry about calling an out of state number cause nearly everyone can do it for free from their cell phone.
Anyone who lives in Alabama ought to be writting a letter to their state representatives asking what is up there. Reports that someone is missusing their computer shouldn't have been ignored in the first place. The state of Alabama needs to completely change that department. Start with replacing the cabinet person responsible for transportation. (I'm guessing this is a cabinet level position, but I don't know how that state government works)
Then do a massive layoff, since most of the upper management obviously needs to go.
We can argue the ethics of what this guy did, but I'm having problems finding anyone ethical in this story. Not the supervistor who ignored the report (if it wasn't ignored either the behavior would have stopped, or the boss would have been fired before this guy finished 6 months of screen grabbing). Not the boss playing solitare instead of the job he should do. Even if he can do his job in 1 hour a week, it is unethical to not find other work that needs to be done for the other 49. This guy is perhaps most ethical, as a admin his job is to watch the state's computers. (but perhaps because I don't know that state) This isn't a private machine he was spying on.
If the supervisors were doing their job, this would have never got this far, because they would have repramanded the boss right away. Then either the boss would have changed so nothing would need to be done, or he wouldn't and they would know to fire him. Most people I know have done something stupid like this at work (including a number of you reading this at work), but when it becomes a problem the boss is supposed to notice and tell you to change before it becomes time to fire you.
Maybe. If he is buying pump ethanol, then it likely is E85 and you are right. If he is using special order ethanol, then he can get 195 proof (the rest is water, and some poison to denature it) and run entirely on ethanol with no gasonline input. I didn't read the article though, so I don't know which.
When I took first aid and CPR I was told that I was not qualified to evaluate the legitimacy of any do not recusitate order. I could not legally help someone who could verbally refuse help, but as soon as that person went unconscience it was illegal for me to not help, even if that person had been begging me to let them die.
Someone unconscience is automaticly assumed to want all the help you can give, until prooven otherwise. Since I can't tell the difference between a proper do not recusitate form, and a forgery (done by the mod just before they murder someone for example...) I was to assume all were invalid.
The EMT who trained me told me that they generally were under the same orders, unless someone could pull out a previously signed order. It wasn't until the emergency room was reached that anyone had the responsibility to check for such orders.
True, but the people have one advantage that those in Washington worry about: votes. When people start informing themselves about issues (all the issues, not just abortion, or just copyrights, but every single one!) and make informend choices, instead of voting for whoever has the most memorable adds, or who looks best on TV things will change. Start with yourself, make sure you vote, and vote based on what they will do (and in case of those with a history anywhere, what they have done). Or if you can't bother to do that, stay home and let those who care vote. (Just beware that we might decide to ruin your life while your not looking, a chance you take)
I check my gas milage regularly. My truck (Chevy s10 with 4.3l v6) gets 23 mpg at 65MPH towing a boat, and 19 mpg at 55MPH unloaded. I've checked these conditions often enough to not belive there is any statistical problems with them.
My car (geo metro) gets 44mpg in the normal mix of city/hiway that I drive to work. I've recorded 49-51 at constant hiway speeds (55 or 65), but don't have enough samples to make any comment on what speed is best.
Sure you sure wind resistance goes up by cube of speed? I recall it only being square, but I'm not sure where to look that up anymore.
You are incorrect, 3DES normally uses just 2 keys, A-B-A. There is a known attack on 2DES (read other posters for an explanation, I'm not going to repeat what they said better than I can) making 2Des where you use encrypt with A, then B equivalent to a 57 bit total key length. 3Des defeats that attack and as used with 2 keys gives you 112 bits of equivalent key length.
There are many different ways to implement 3DES (and I know of no theoretical reason you couldn't use 3 different keys), the most common one is to encrypt with key A, then DECRYPT with key B, then encrypt with key A. Note that the middle step is decryption with the wrong key. I'm not sure what the reasoning behind this is anymore. Nobody has used any form a DES for a few years now if they had any other choice.
While not near the penetration of S.K., those areas of the US also have broadband in most areas. If you want it and live in a densly populated area you can get it.
Look at the population density of North Dakota. I know someone who lives in a township (36 square miles) with a population of 95, and the next township over has only 17. (thats 2 square miles per person and some left over!) They are the ones without a good broadband option. they also only get 1 TV station, and then only on a good night. I think there is a radio station, but I've never heard them listen to it so I can't be sure. Do you have any good ideas for getting them broadband? They'd buy it, but only if it was affordable.
Sorry to burst your dream, but there are large areas of the US without any cell phone coverage. Not just no digital, not even some old clunky analog tower for a hundred miles. Course nobody lives in those areas, but they still exist.
Overall I agree, but you should be more careful with your examples. Considering Boston's big dig won't even be finished for a year or so yet it isn't fair to call it a failure yet.
Patents still expire in about 20 years. unlike say copyrights that will last longer than you will. Like something that Microsoft has patented, you can safely put it in open source 20 years from now, a long time, but most of us will live 20 more years. (barring the end of the world or some such of course)
So far Microsoft has just collected patents, generally only using them for defense. If the trend continues you might get by with using that Microsoft patented thing today since Microsoft doesn't really seem to care. I wouldn't because they might change at anytime, but history says you are likely to get away with it. Microsoft has threatened to start enforcing their patents, but so far nothing has come of it. (I can't recall any exceptions where Microsoft actually struck first, though they might exist)
Useability is not the same as learnability, except for the case of a kiosk where nobody uses it twice.
True useability goes beyond grandma using the machine the first time, to grandma emailing the grandkids daily (weekly or however often). True useability may even go so far as to time how long it takes to press each key, and re-arranging the keyboard to save 1/10th of a second. (AT&T did this once for their operators, a case where spending a couple days in training saves money in the long run once they know the new layout the saves the thousands of seconds per person per month)
Linux is very useable if you are a programmer. KDE is very useable if you use your computer daily. And if you have never used a computer before KDE/gnome is just as useable as windows. (each has its own quirks though) If you are an expert at windows linux and the desktops are not as useable at first, if you take the effort to learn them they are at least as useable, perhaps more so depending on what you want to do with them.
As an example: I ran spell check on this post and corrected 7 errors. (there may be more, but speelcheck didn't find them) This is much easier to do in KDE than in any other desktop I've used. However there is something else that you can do easily that I can't easily do in KDE.
Its not that no novels will be created, it is that authors have to eat, and that means (unless we have a communist/socialist society and it works...) working 40 hours a week doing something else, then finding time between meals, sleeping, and all those other things that have to be done, to write. Some have it in them and will do it. However that effort will burn them out, and most will never write again. Most do not. So we as a society offer an exchange: for a limited time you control the reproduction of your work, if you create it. Authors can choose how to sell their work then, and ideally this means they can earn enough to create more. As a bonus someone who proves an ability to write can get investors to advance them enough to finish the work, thus letting them create a good work.
Its a compromise. We want authors to create more than a couple hours a week (which is all that is left over from other tasks) so we give them the ability to sell their work.
You appear to have mixed up linux and windows in your post.
what obscure net driver he needs for his internal VIA network adapter.
It looks like you were putting down linux in the above, yet linux somehow manages to recognize those componants out of the box. I just installed windows 2k on a bunch of old machines, and had search for drivers. On one "designed for windows 2000 and ME) machine I was only able to figure out which driver to use after I pried the heatsink off the northbridge and googled the numbers on it! Linux somehow manages to find every adaptor, and just knows how to deal with most of the obscure hardware I throw at it. Last time I tried to use hardware that linux didn't support (a wireless network) linux told me that what it was, and that it didn't know how to use it!
Scrolling works on my USB mouse as soon as I plug it in. As soon as I tell linux what to do, it does it. Suse 9.1 pro is a nice distribution, these are not the days when slackware 3.0 is the most popular distribution anymore. If you want to do it all yourself linux will let you, but a good modern distribution solves the end user problems that linux used to have.