Re: Emacs vista build failures

[Richard M Stallman]

    In that case, should not investigating hardware be something that is 
    done as earlier as possible in the installation process - with a 
    possibility for the user to just back off if the installation process 
    finds hardware it does not recognize.

The best time to investigate hardware is before you buy it.
So we have fsf.org/resource/hw.
(Or maybe it is fsf.org/resources/hw; I can't check from here.)

However, your idea seems like a good one.
I don't know whether distros have already done this or not,
but if they have not, it would be good to suggest this to
maintainers.