When I was first trying to enter the world of Linux in 1998-1999, pretty much every hardware I tried was hopeless. So I gave up and continued using Windows like everyone else. I tried again in 2007 and found the situation about 50:50. That was when I made the switch. In 2009, I found that on most hardware I tried, most Linuxes worked right out of the box. It was Windows that didn't and needed hunting for drivers.

Why am I saying this? Times they are a-changing, the definition of "hopeless" keeps shifting all the time.