hardware programming.
 

hi everyone,
i am currently using microsoft and wanted to try linux.
i am not a programmer but wanted to learn. Is hardware programming like computer interfacing a capability of linux? just want to know...

I don't know what "...hardware programming like computer interfacing..." means but Linux can do anything that any other operating system can do.

Here are some examples of what came to my mind when I read your question.

Linux is used to run many cell phones.

Linux can run an eeprom burner.

Embedded Linux is used in many electrical appliances.

There are programs to design and emulate electrical circuits.

I am going to hazard a guess that by hardware programming you are referring to interfacing custom hardware to your PC, for example via a USB or PCI bus. The short answer to this is yes and you will likely find developing such applications to be a more enriching experience than under Windows. Writing such applications is considerably different than writing user mode applications because you are writing kernel modules that get run in Linux kernel space. As such you don't have access to features such as the standard library, which makes your task more complicated. If this is the sort of thing you are interested in, you will probably be interested in the Linux Device Drivers book that has been made freely available for download.