@sjuvonen @andrewt I was using Linux around the same time and I had tons of issues with drivers. I was able to solve almost all of them, but it was often non-trivial. A good portion of sound cards of that era for example were hard to get working--driver issues AND PnP issues.
Hell, just getting online was a thing. I remember calling up my dial-in ISP to say their modem connection chat was sending html instead of login prompt and they all just drunkenly laughed.