I intend to upgrade my pc sometime this year. I am mainly looking at upgrading my video card from a 16MB RIVA TNT2, and I like the sound of upgrading my soundcard from an SB PCI128. I also want to upgrade from windows to linux, probably mandrake or suse from rviews i have found.

Good hardware / driver info for windows seems easy to come by, that for Linux less so. But I am getting the impression that hardware / driver support for linux is a lot less than we Bill-Gates'-slaves are used to, and that this comes down to lack of industry interest [ = money] rather than a lack of user interest [ = need]. Any nuggets on what bits I should invest in, or which sites have a comprehensive selection of good reviews that I can mine for a linux perspective?

Money is only an issue in that I object to microsoft getting anymore of mine, and I am looking for VFM - three times as powerful for twice as much money is fine, 5% more power for three times more money is only for much more up-to-date currency-forgers than myself. Then again, I am looking a buying a printer too - laser - do any web-pages shed light on them with linux?

Thanks.

I think you might find the Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO helpful.

Generally avoid "winhardware" (hardware that uses the cpu instead of real hardware) and you are OK.

Each distro had a hardware compatability list as well. See their sites.

Watch modems, video cards and soundcards especially.

A good article:
The Ultimate Linux Box - [URL=http://catb.org/~esr/writings/ultimate-linux-box/update.html[/URL]