this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024
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Linux
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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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a quick and dirty way to find out if your hardware is supported is to try out a live usb distributions that runs entirely off of a usb stick and never makes any permanent changes to your system.
it will run MUCH slower than a regular installation; but if you see all of your hardware and drivers enumerated in lspci; you'll know that it works out of the box.
you should know that this limits you to the distros that have live usb images only; but if you go with mainstream debian, fedora, arch, etc. you'll instantly know that downstream distro's are capable of supporting with that hardware with that version of the mainstream distribution that they're forked from (eg ubuntu from debian; manjaro from arch; suse from redhat; etc.)
i used this method extensively when i was new to linux and distro hopped a lot; it taught me a lot when i first started out.
I find quite often that the Live version of a distro will work perfectly, but after install some hardware won't work anymore.
yes, that will happen.
the live distro's come included with a lot of preloaded driver/firmware that is not included with a regular installation for a myriad of reasons; but you can use lspci and lsmod from the live environment to identify the proper software you need to add to your regular installation to get that hardware working.
It's just weird that after install it can't detect my hardware and pull the drivers it needs like windows does.
Sometimes it’s an ideological issue. Some distributions don’t ship nonfree drivers, some do, but require you to manually install them, and some have trouble making up their mind. This last is where you get live cds that automatically load the drivers needed for your hardware, but when you actually install, things aren’t working anymore.