One of great things about the Ubuntu desktop is its hardware compatibility. For example, it does Wi-Fi surprisingly well these days. While I may still grumble about its reliance on the ndiswrapper with select chipsets, overall I've been pleased with how well Ubuntu 12.10 now handles natively supported Wi-Fi dongles. In previous versions of Ubuntu, we often had to blacklist one driver to compile another, especially with select Ralink chipsets. Thankfully, this kind of compatibility issue is not a problem any longer.

Additional successes include fantastic support for just about anything that connects via USB: webcams, printers/scanners, external storage devices, MTP-based MP3 players, plus countless other devices. You really don't realize just how great Ubuntu peripheral support truly is until you connect a wireless mouse to Windows 7 and then wait for it to be detected, then search for drivers and eventually see it activated. It's rather disgusting when you stop to think about it. Since I don't use Windows 8, I can't speak to how USB devices work with that release. What I do know is that USB devices—old, new, and nearly everything in between—work great under Ubuntu.