While the heart of the problem is probably as Alan suggests (hardware
that doesn't meet spec), I also see a catch-22 for the Linux community
in this situation.
While hardware problems are not specifically the fault of the linux
kernel, people that run other OSes on the same hardware without problems
will continue to lay blame on Linux as the culprit. Since Linux's
acceptance has as much to do with perception as technical merit, these
perceptions have risk. [Not to mention that some pride is at stake, who
wants to be outdone by the engineers at Microsoft, even if only in an
area as mundane as robustness?]
It's great that Linux can and does excel at extracting lots of
performance out of our "lowly" Intel boxes, but it seems that this has
some price to it. Perhaps, a concerted effort to figure out how flakey
hardware misbehaves, and some technique for working around these issues
should be considered, if such work is not already underway.
-- Eric Schweitz <schwea@aur.alcatel.com>