List of Distros that support drivers out of the box or a program to install them?
 

Hi.

What are the distros that support hardware drivers out of the box or a program to install them i.e. example image

I know of these:
Ubuntu and derivatives (can install drivers via Hardware Drivers program)
PCLinuxOS (everything seems to work out of the box)
...

Can someone tell me of more? Thanks.

You might as well say ubuntu does also, they have a place to check on installation if you want to install proprietary drivers and flash. I believe Linux Mint also comes "out of the box" and knoppix. As time goes you will probably see more distros. Most of them have them in their repositories now so that it is no big deal to install.

you can add Redhat, centos, fedora to the list.
i'm sure there are lots of others

Pretty much any distro that uses a package manager can be added to the list.

i was at a speech hosted by richard stallman and he mentioned that the reason why he switched from debian linux to i think fedora was because debian had a facility to install proprietary drivers which made it harder for the free software foundation to push manufacturers for the need of open drivers.

RMS uses gNewSense. He would never use Debian or Fedora at the moment as they both contain non free software. I think you may have been referring to Linux Torvalds as I've heard that he likes Fedora.

I wont speak for fedora, but debian does NOT contain 'non free software' by defualt, and the FSF even state as much-

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/common-distros.html

You need to add the 'non-free' to be able to get non-free software. I agree with the goals of the FSF, but sometimes they just get a bit silly. See the entry for gentoo to see what I mean-

BTW, IIRC gNewSense is pretty much ubuntu with the "restricted" and "multiverse" repos removed. I've always wondered how hard it would be to re-add those repos....I guess if it was 'easy' the FSF would have to remove its approval of gNewSense?

It doesn't depend on distro but download content. Most distros are designed that extra stuff needs be downloaded from internet and some allow to get it directly from downloaded .iso file you made your OS from. Mandriva in this case will be excellent example - it comes in different ways - Free and One and other. If you choose Free you won't get any extra stuff in .iso but if you choose One then you get ATI|NVidia drivers already included and can use them directly without downloading from or needing internet. I picked One because my PC has issues with drivers too much and this way i can be safe i will always have working drivers when needed without useless need to download them. Same stuff applies to other stuff like flash and so on..Debian also nice example - if you choose base install you get pretty much empty OS but if you choose additional stuff when installing then you may get full package already from install source. Of course few distros are designed this way that they include stuff already in .iso As for rest you can't be serious to ask someone else do the exploring journey for you right?
Pretty much anything that allows install something with termianl or gui + internet of course. Because most software work for all distros and not limited to one.
Same goes for Fedora. Any extra or non-free non-default content you need install manually yourself or with "mods" since they share same mind-set.