Isn't this at least partly the manufacturer's fault? I think Ubuntu is trying to work with PC makers to get drivers written and tested before the hardware ships.
Maybe it's a bit chicken-and-egg to get that to happen - people won't buy Linux boxes until it works on every machine, but makers won't try to get it to work on their machines until people are buying Linux boxes.
I did manage to buy a Linux box from Dell a while back. Even though I immediately wiped their custom install and upgraded to the latest version, set up dual-boot, etc, buying one with Ubuntu pre-installed was the best way I could determine to make sure the hardware would actually be compatible.
Yeah, I definitely think it's a chicken-and-egg problem. In general, my experience is that the hardware that has official support in Linux works much better there than in other OS'es.
Things are certainly getting better than they used to be, now I'm more surprised if things like wifi and webcams don't work out of the box, whereas a while ago, it was almost a certainty that they wouldn't.
Maybe it's a bit chicken-and-egg to get that to happen - people won't buy Linux boxes until it works on every machine, but makers won't try to get it to work on their machines until people are buying Linux boxes.
I did manage to buy a Linux box from Dell a while back. Even though I immediately wiped their custom install and upgraded to the latest version, set up dual-boot, etc, buying one with Ubuntu pre-installed was the best way I could determine to make sure the hardware would actually be compatible.