Linked by Gilboa Davara on Thu 30th Jun 2005 12:29 UTC
If you've heard about Linux and feel like giving it a go or if you want to try Linux but you're too afraid it'll shew up your computer, this article is for you. Read it, feel free to take what you need and ignore the rest. This is not a tutorial, it's a README-FIRST-like article. It should help you to take that first dive.
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Robocastie's comment about fonts is true. TTF fonts have hinting data embedded within them that was put there by the font artist; that is, instructions on how to slightly modify rendering at different sizes so that glyphs do not get distorted. AFAIK, this information and its use is proprietary to Apple. Microsoft pays license fees to include an engine in their operating system to use the hinting information, but FreeType does not do so for IP reasons (It is there in the code, but disabled; you can enable it through a configure switch IIRC).
It is not as simple as "apt-get ms-fonts-ttf" or "emerge corefonts"; the "real" problem with linux fonts is more subtle and doesn't seem to have any solution outside of just ignoring IP laws in the US.
The media player issue is another one that is tough to solve; its not that the standard net media player, which I'd argue is the mplayer plugin for gecko, is bad; its that it lacks codecs that aren't free. I much prefer the video player offerings in Linux to Windows; although I'm a xine guy, I've found that xine-lib and mplayer both feature codec packs that are extremely complete, lacking in frustrating xvid problems and in particular viruses or spyware that infest many windows codec packs. Media playing on Linux in general is a joy comparitively; with the exception of distributions that come (in my view inexplicably) without mp3 support.
I left the printer problem last, but I think the real problem with Linux hardware configuration is that it exists at two levels: at the "real" level where you require some set of drivers (either modules or built in) to exist in your kernel, and at the "abstract" level where you have various GUI configurator programs that ship with KDE or Gnome or are distro specific. Problems at the "real" level of course make anything you do at the "abstract" level completely worthless; and in order for hardware to be "working" (according to the user), it needs to be working at *both* levels.
Printers are a great example of this; your kernel might have the propper drivers for your USB interface or the ethernet card with which you will connect to the printer, and you might have CUPS installed with all of the propper communication protocols that it needs for your system to work, but if clicking file -> print doesn't work, none of the lower level stuff really matters.
So in order to get your periphirals to work you need to understand in quite intimate detail how to interface with them already: take the examples of a USB joypad, USB connected camera, and a PCMCIA wifi card.