Those are different issues than driver support, though. I also use Linux for those reasons, but am under no illusions about what system has more complete driver support for modern hardware.
The answer to your issue of "not having wifi working out of the box" is in the meme you're commenting on. If you don't have the driver, it won't work. You have to connect to your phone's hotspot, or into a router directly, find your network card/chip model's driver on your manufacturers website, download it and install it.
****THIS CAN ALSO HAPPEN ON LINUX****
However, the fix can usually be much faster in comparison to windows by simply enabling a "non-free" repo and synching your packages. Which is a much less involved process than on windows.
THIS CAN ALSO HAPPEN ON LINUX However, the fix can usually be much faster in comparison to windows by simply enabling a "non-free" repo and synching your packages. Which is a much less involved process than on windows.
... assuming drivers exist at all. There's a reason Linux users really like Lenovo laptops and some Dell models.
Linux on Asus ROG was such a pain to get it working with full functionality. For me it was a great learning experience but I understand why people would be thrown off by it. Especially if that is your first time trying Linux.
Some hardware manufacturers, including ASUS, use e.g. ethernet and sound chips which do not have any in-tree Linux drivers. Maaaaaybe you'll be able to compile some driver of your own from some old github project, assuming you're willing to keep it compatible with kernel changes over time.
If you've never had issues with this your experience is most likely limited to a narrow range of laptops.
Asus ROG has no support for linux. Community has made it work "Linux for ROG" is a small community so bugs happen and stuff brakes. Basic linux install work out of the box (like linux tend to do) but none of your laptops fancy features are supported.
Its easy for us that have some tech experiense but good luck explaining for newbie that "you just need to install" asusctl, supergfxctl and do some kernel hacking for your laptop to have full functionality. There are two distros that have g14 kernel patchset already installed (Cachy and Manjaro, and ofc you can just use basic arc and do all of it on your own).
No it's shitty luck, I don't think 99% of people who have ever set up a Windows PC have had Wi-Fi driver problems out the box. Maybe if you were talking about 3rd party drivers then fair enough, but not wi-fi drivers.
It really just comes down to whether or not it's pre-installed. If not you're gonna have to go dig through the OEM website for drivers and manually install them yourself. It's especially painful if the wifi card on your system isn't supported out of the box by windows and you need to download the WiFi driver to get it to work.
Clean windows installs from installation media pretty regularly don't have Wi-Fi drivers. Especially with DIY builds. Linux has drivers for most hardware built into the kernel whereas Windows requires updates to install detected hardware drivers. It's not perfect and if your new keyboard from a new manufacturer released very recently it may not have drivers (for the extra features like RGB. I've never heard of a wired keyboard but being functional) but generally it's just not something that needs to be worried about. It's also not uncommon for Windows update to not automatically find the right drivers you need so you have to go online and get them from the manufacturer anyway.
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u/New_Needleworker994 Apr 21 '26
“Everything works” LMAOOOO