iPod Touch picky about its electrons

I just came across a blog post by Daniel Schneller about his iPod Touch being very picky about where it gets its electrons from. It can get charged via a USB port and gets charged while running Windows or MacOS but not when running Linux. The fix was to install a driver, but it seems pretty odd anyway. I connect my iMate Jasjar to the computer (irrespective of which OS is running) and sometimes to the DVD player.

I can understand people being cautious about where they get their money from to avoid counterfeit but why would an iPod touch want to know where it gets its electrons from?