this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2024
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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I don't think you're going to find an explicit list of drivers in a distro, at least that I've found. I think a better approach will be to lookup your hardware and try to find what kernel version support was added. If the distro is shipping that version or newer, you'll probably be good to go.
There's exceptions however like proprietary drivers. While those drivers are becoming exceedingly rare, some distros will only ship with FOSS software, don't expect debian to ever work out of the box with nvidia. This is usually a principles/morals decision by the maintainers. That said distros that ship closed source software usually advertise it, they might offer an Nvidia build or the distro include software like steam pre-installed.
You didn't mentioned your component specifically but if your hardware doesn't have mainline kernel support, is pretty good assumption it's proprietary and will need to be handled separately with something like dkms. Check the distros documentation for their recommended approach.
Edit: to clarify on my debian example, Nvidia cards will work with open source nouveau out of the box on debian, but you will definitely want to install proprietary driver if you're using the card for CUDA or gaming.
how to do this?
good news is I don't think I have ever in my life owned anything nvidia.
thanks, I never heard of
dkmsbefore. I read the arch wiki, wikipedia, and made an attempt at the github repo (very long and over my head). The arch wiki only mentions nvidia. Is this something I need if I am certain nvidia is not the problem? Or is it a general thing?Off the top of my head some components I've had problems with: touchpads, touch screens, wifi, ethernet, bluetooth, audio in, audio out, media keys. I have suspected others also like (onboard intel) GPUs but it's a little harder for me to even pin those problems down to the hardware.
Are you running Wayland on your Arch setup? There could be an extra layer of compatibility issue there as opposed to X11.
No to wayland.
I have used arch-based distros. They tend towards better support but not universally.
I think you may be mistaking what I meant? Wayland is a display server protocol, like Xorg, which is independent of the Arch base system. Depending on your hardware, kernel level support may be available and installed, while your display server software may be the component having problems and not the kernel or other system configurations. Just an idea to poke at, some setups and hardware support can break at different points based on the way you've set up your system with associated packages/dependencies.