How can I know what hardware was not identified on my system ?

hq4ever · 11-22-2005, 02:20 PM

Assuming I'm installing a new linux 2.6 kernel on a system (debian for the sake of example), how can I know what hardware did got identified by my kernel and what wasn't ?

How do I add another "driver's" to my kernel, is simply copying the binary module file into the modules folder will be enough, or do I need to get the source of it and recompile my whole kernel for this ?

Thank you for reading,
Maxim.

Finlay · 11-22-2005, 02:40 PM

lspci
should list all PCI devices detected
lsusb
same for usb

you will most likely need the kernel source code configured for your current kernel, then you can compile modules and modprobe them

hq4ever · 11-22-2005, 11:55 PM

Exactly lspci, lsusb would give me the hardware the system _is_ aware of, what I wish to have it the list of the hardware that the system could not load the driver for... (like the big red X in windows device manager).

I think that the correct way to go with this is dmesg, but I can't find exactly what I need to grep from there.

Any help would be appreciated.

Finlay · 11-22-2005, 11:57 PM

lspci and lsusb will show you hardware that has a driver installed or not
it will give you the device id, manufacturer and other relevant info you will need to track down a driver

hq4ever · 11-23-2005, 04:27 PM

I see.

That answers the first part of my puzzle, Thank you.

Lets assume that I find a binary driver (.so file?) that was compiled using some older/newer gcc version then the kernel it self, Do I stand at least a 50 / 50 chances that the kernel will be able to work with that driver ?
Should I load it into the kernel "know-what" list or something like that? Or maybe simply putting it into the directory where the other drivers reside is enough ?

Thank you very much for helping,

Cheers, Maxim.

Finlay · 11-23-2005, 04:33 PM

the kernel module will need to be compiled with the same version gcc as the kernel was compiled, if it works with different versions then that is a fluke. it is pretty easy to compile a module, which is what you are talking about, that is something loaded after boot, as long as it isn't a device needed for booting like a raid controller or filesystem you can compile a module and load that module