Linux Drivers
 

Hello people :)

I'm a little confused about the drivers in Linux. When I install Windows XP, Vista, 7 etc. after the installation I always need to install drivers (sound card, video card etc.) but, when I install a Linux Distro, Everything just works fine. I don't need to install drivers. So, does Linux install drivers automatically when the OS installs or maybe it downloads drivers automatically from the internet or maybe it doesn't use drivers (I'm new to Linux) ? :)

Thanks in advice and Happy New Year :)

Hi
Happy New Year...
If proper driver for a particular device not combined with OS itself, you should get it and install from the right source(mostly you can get the driver from hardware vendors). It is applicable for any operating system. As you think most of the drivers have been combined with linux distro's.

Linux developers are trying to make linux user friendly ,so they ship OS pre-installed with some basic drivers which are open source and does not need any licensing from hardware manufacturers but if drivers are proprietary than you have to install them yourself.

You can also check the list of device drivers of linux from here:
http://www.linux-drivers.org/

The Linux Kernel is essentially a lump of drivers. If you want to add or change drivers you have to Recompile the Kernel or use a (Linux Kernel Module). The kernel can be recompiled it's self without involving the rest of the O.S . Trying to get the driver is the hard part. There is a application that attempts to convert a M.S driver to a Linux one.

http://techtips.salon.com/convert-wi...nux-11847.html


http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Module-HOWTO/

Thank you all for answering :) Cheers!

And, the problem with that is...? ;)

Well, to be slightly pedantic about this, you are probably using a Distro (a Distribution being Linux (technically, a kernel), quite a few utilities, some configuration tools and scripts and a bunch of installable applications). Now, as much as anything, it is the stuff added by the distribution that will deal with configuring the drivers at the initial install. So, first they have to detect what hardware is present, work out what drivers are appropriate for the particular hardware and install and configure them.

Normally, everything required will be on the install medium (disk, etc), but in the case of more obscure (or just plain difficult) hardware, that might not be the case. And, it also might not be the case for install media of restricted size (small USB sticks, CDs rather than DVDs), but you can normally grab stuff off the internet, with the help of the application installer for your distro, in that case.

Some Distros take the battle against proprietary drivers more seriously than others. Generally, what this amounts to is to make you jump through a few hoops before you can get proprietary drivers installed, so you can question how effective this is, but, in general, we can probably agree that it would be better all round if everything had open and free drivers. Even when open and free drivers are available, it sometimes happens that there are two, or more, sets of drivers with different advantages and disadvantages.

In that case it can be quite problematic/controversial to decide what should happen, but if everything 'just works' straight out of the box, you have reasons to be happy and mutter a silent prayer of thanks (or non-religious equivalent) to your distro, because they have done what you wanted, even though you could not have described what you wanted, in detail.

Awsome. I kind of expected something like that from a wonderful OS like Linux :) Thanks!