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.
That is a long list. I would have expected no problems with Ethernet cards, and not so much with WiFi but that is just a thought. Is this is pretty new computer ? Can you share which Linux distributions you tried ?
Linux distros I have tried include: ubuntus, debians, fedoras, opensuse, manjaro, endeavour, mint. No slackware, redhat, centos, gentoo, nix, kali, steam.
Every device I currently own is a refurb originally manufactured 5-15 years ago. It's based on some combination of cheapness and hoping that things will be supported by them time I get my hands on them. I don't have any requirement for blazing hardware.
Some of them are unsurprisingly annoying, like netbooks I picked up only because they were cheap and were reported to have linux successfully installed by people online. With these things, it seems that most of the features work just not all at the same time. I can choose between a smoothly-functioning trackpad in one distribution and bluetooth in another. But why? How do I compare them.
Good. Some light weight suggestions for your devices to try :
Netbooks as in for example Asus EEE models ? I think some of these models had really slow hard disks and also needed some tweaks for some part of the hardware. The difference in your hardware success / failure is perhaps mainly because of the different kernels and the hardware support of a Linux distribution release (btw, Debian 12 aka Bookworm had for the first time non-free firmware bundled with the installer). In general I think refurbished old Thinkpads should be fine with Linux. Here's two dedicated wikis for that :