A lot of software and hardware has warmed up to Linux in recent years, but there’s still a long way to go. And then there are some parties which were once Linux-friendly or OS-agnostic are growing more Linux-hostile.

Lots of hardware vendors are providing Linux support now. For example, NVIDIA and ATI offer Linux drivers for their video cards. A lot of vendors offer instructions on their website on how to find open-source drivers for their products if they don’t offer their own Linux drivers.

Today I went to Amazon.com to search for a CD I had heard about. Amazon had some sample tracks to listen to and they were available to download for Windows Media Player and Real Player. That sucks by itself because these applications are bloated messes. Why not just use MP3 or MP2 like they used to?! Why did they switch to these jokes?!

You can play Real and Windows Media formats on Linux. Real Player is available natively for Linux and programs like xine, xmms, and mplayer will play Windows Media formats with some work.

In this case, however, Amazon presents the download files as *.exe files. MAJOR NO-NO. Now only Windows users can sample music. This locks out not just Linux (and other Unix OSes) but Mac OS users as well! BAD AMAZON! BAD! BAD!