-
We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
Does Linux require Driver installs like Windoze?
- Thread starter Tweakin
- Start date
Have you seen DasFox's great sticky on this subject? Yes you do need drivers under Linux, but it installs them automatically for the most part. There are a couple you may have to go through varying amounts of pain to install.
The vast majority of the time your distro will include the driver by default. Most drivers you'll use are completely open source and integrated into the kernel your using and everything is detected and setup automaticly each time you reboot. Even if you did something like install Linux onto a USB flash drive when you go from computer to computer it will automaticly detect and setup most hardware.
However in some specific cases (mostly to do with 3d acceleration) you may need to install propriatory drivers. In Linux your driver has to match the exact same kernel version as the one you install. Unlike Windows kernel versions change all the time and a single distro will often offer many different kernel versions.
So if your running the default kernel most often most propriatory drivers will have a software package you just install using the package management system. You run a command and it will automaticly download and install the driver for you. Then you have to edit your configs sometimes.
If your changing kernels or you use a new updated kernel there may not be a binary package for your kernel for a propriatory driver. Generally then you have to compile a custom driver for your kernel which is a bit more difficult but not to hard after you do it a couple times.
If you use Ubuntu they will have documentation on how to do all this stuff with a few commands.
However in some specific cases (mostly to do with 3d acceleration) you may need to install propriatory drivers. In Linux your driver has to match the exact same kernel version as the one you install. Unlike Windows kernel versions change all the time and a single distro will often offer many different kernel versions.
So if your running the default kernel most often most propriatory drivers will have a software package you just install using the package management system. You run a command and it will automaticly download and install the driver for you. Then you have to edit your configs sometimes.
If your changing kernels or you use a new updated kernel there may not be a binary package for your kernel for a propriatory driver. Generally then you have to compile a custom driver for your kernel which is a bit more difficult but not to hard after you do it a couple times.
If you use Ubuntu they will have documentation on how to do all this stuff with a few commands.
If you tell me what wireless device you have I can probably give you a idea of how hard it would be to support.
The important thing isn't so much what the make and model is, but what the device's chipset is. The drivers care about the chipset and unfortunately wireless card makers will use the same names for different cards and makes things difficult sometimes.
Check this out for Ubuntu:
<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport">https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport</a>
edit:
Oh and also the drivers provided by Linux developers and are open source are more often then not better then propriatory drivers or drivers you can find on manufacturer's websites.
So it's kinda opposite of what you have with Windows.
The major exception is video card drivers for 3d acceleration for newer ATI cards and all Nvidia cards.
The important thing isn't so much what the make and model is, but what the device's chipset is. The drivers care about the chipset and unfortunately wireless card makers will use the same names for different cards and makes things difficult sometimes.
Check this out for Ubuntu:
<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport">https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport</a>
edit:
Oh and also the drivers provided by Linux developers and are open source are more often then not better then propriatory drivers or drivers you can find on manufacturer's websites.
So it's kinda opposite of what you have with Windows.
The major exception is video card drivers for 3d acceleration for newer ATI cards and all Nvidia cards.
Ok for BCM43xx devices, which are the common Broadcom-based 802.11g devices the driver is going to be provided by default with newer systems. Unfortunately the firmware is something that gets loaded each time you activate the card and nobody has a license to redistribute that.
So basicly you need to download and install the firmware images before you can use the card.
There is a software package you can install that provides the ability to automaticly download and extract the firmware you need or at least provide the fwcutter program that will make it easy to do yourself. I am not sure what the package is called in Ubuntu.
(edit: it's called bcm43xx-fwcutter and you'll have to download the driver youself there is a compressed text file in /usr/share/doc/bcm43xx-fwcutter/README.gz that has a list of drivers and the firmware versions you can download and use)
After that it'll work. The major issue with that driver is that the speed is set at 11Mb/s by default and if you have a nice network or a bad network it won't adjust speeds to compinsate. But other then that it'll work.
You can adjust the speed by doing things like 'iwconfig sta0 rate 2M' or 'iwconfig sta0 rate 54M' to set a custom rate.
Hopefully newer updates will fix this.
So basicly you need to download and install the firmware images before you can use the card.
There is a software package you can install that provides the ability to automaticly download and extract the firmware you need or at least provide the fwcutter program that will make it easy to do yourself. I am not sure what the package is called in Ubuntu.
(edit: it's called bcm43xx-fwcutter and you'll have to download the driver youself there is a compressed text file in /usr/share/doc/bcm43xx-fwcutter/README.gz that has a list of drivers and the firmware versions you can download and use)
After that it'll work. The major issue with that driver is that the speed is set at 11Mb/s by default and if you have a nice network or a bad network it won't adjust speeds to compinsate. But other then that it'll work.
You can adjust the speed by doing things like 'iwconfig sta0 rate 2M' or 'iwconfig sta0 rate 54M' to set a custom rate.
Hopefully newer updates will fix this.
Ya sure. Most of Kubuntu will be pretty much exactly the same as Ubuntu. It's just that one has the KDE desktop as default and the other has Gnome.
As far as drivers and such go it's going to be the same irregardless. Hope I am right about your card.. Always it's difficult to tell unless you try the hardware first, you know.
As far as drivers and such go it's going to be the same irregardless. Hope I am right about your card.. Always it's difficult to tell unless you try the hardware first, you know.
Originally posted by: Tweakin
Cool, I think I've got it now.
What about the install?
What about it? It should be simple.
Does it need a primary partition?
It shouldn't, but you can have 4 on a disk, so why not?
Can it overwrite NTFS?
Yes, it can delete NTFS formatted partitions and create better ones.
Will it create and update the boot ini file for dual-booting?
Not that I'm aware of. Most Linux installs will install grub or LILO for dual booting. If you want to use the boot.ini you'll have to do a few things manually.
It really depends on your distro. I get the feeling that a lot of the people that are responding are experienced in Debian based distros (my favorite for business servers BTW). Distributions such as Gentoo require that you compile driver support for your devices into your kernel. This is not difficult, but it isn't automatic.
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes + WCL Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 25K
-
Discussion Intel current and future Lakes & Rapids thread- Started by TheF34RChannel
- Replies: 24K
-
-
