Now here‘s a clever idea: Set aside one day out of the calendar and hammer your local computer store (big box or mom-and-pop) over the availability of Linux-compatible components.

As I understand it (but I’m still ironing out the details), you just ask what they have in stock. You don’t have to buy anything. Just ask the minimum-wage employee in his company polo shirt and black trousers if he’s got a wifi card with an Orinoco chipset in it. Or if there’s a copy of Ubuntu anywhere. Or if their stock AMD64 laptop will play friendly with Regnum Online.

Sound easy enough. And rattling box store managers with an inundation of Linux requests might make a ripple in the market.