I know that you can write device drivers and have the kernal access them, thus allowing your hardware to be recognized.

I wanted to get redhat 8.0 but a lot of my hardware wasn't explicitly listed as being supported since my PC is around 6 months old. So I am thinking of waiting for the next version of Linux which I hope will be able to support more of my hardware. Lets say that Redhat 8.0 uses the same kernal as the next Redhat version to come out, does that mean that even the there might be a newer release number they support the same hardware? Is all hardware compatibility through the kernal? Are there programs that they might have that can search for your hardware and make the OS recognize the device without having it specifically in the Kernal? Does that make sense?

First of all, it's kernEl (with an e). Like popcorn

Most of the time, the older your hardware is, the more likely that it will be supported (since the people who are writing all the code have had more time to work on it). So yes, having a relatively new machine (like yours) may have some problems with support. However, there is very little hardware, in general, that is unsupported in current versions of Linux. (Just having a new PC doesn't mean much - you don't need drivers for a motherboard, hard drive, monitor, or a lot of other stuff. As long as your video card, mouse, and other peripherals are supported, you'll be fine).

Even if you have something that's not explicitly supported, there is often something that is close enough. If the kernel itself doesn't have great support for it, then it's possible that the vendor has provided drivers for it (for example, Nvidia, who makes the whole GeForce line of video chipsets, provides good drivers for Linux. Hewlett Packard provides printer drivers for most of their printers, also).

If hardware compatibility is the only thing holding you back from trying Linux, don't let it! I haven't done a huge amount of stuff with Linux, but in my experience the hardware support is considerably *better* than it ever was in Windows (at least I don't have to go hunting down the driver floppy or CD-Rom or go hunting around online for updated drivers when it doesn't work). Now is the time to start using Linux

Most hardware is supported on the kernel, but it's not unheard of to have a vendor supply drivers for their own hardware. More vendors are supplying open source drivers or actively support developers who want to make the build the driver mods. Others will say they support it but only make a half-hearted attempt or supply binary-only drivers for a specific distibution.

Promise technologies will tell you they have Linux drivers for their mid-range RAID products, but if you dig around a little bit you'll find that they only publish binaries for certain (outdated) distributions or occasionally a snippet of source code. You best bet is to do a little google search before you decide to buy the hardware and see what other Linux users have to say about the product.

Rh 7.3 and 8.0 shipped with the same kernel, but 9.0 will probably at least come with 2.4.19 if not 2.4.20. If you really want to know if your kit is well supported, I would recommend trying out a Linux live CD, like www.knoppix.org has to offer. 6 months can mean a bunch of different things, it usually depends on how obnoxious the manufacturers of the individual components were.

Cheers,

Finegan

Thanks for the replys guys. First off I am not a Linux newbie. I don't consider myself to be an expert either, but I had configured my PC with Redhat Linux when version 5.2 was out. I am not scared of it, I love it! Its unfortunate that I can't use it more often.
Anyways I had Redhat 8.0 in my possesion but then returned it thinking that a newer version will probably have better support for my hardware. Also my PC has an nVidia card and I had heard many people have several problems with it.
All in all I think Linux has matured incredibly over tha last few years that I have been looking at it. I am getting seriously interested in creating device drivers myself at least to support my own hardware.
From looking at Linux and the different prepackaged distros out there it looks like it is the Kernel that really matters. They can give you as many fancy programs as they want, but it is the advancement in the kernal that will trully make linux more and more powerful. DO you guys agree or disagree?

(ps. from looking at my PC specs in my sig do you think I should have kept Redhat 8.0 or did I do a good thing waiting for the new release?)

Can't say for the other stuff, but the SBLive and GeForce MX 420 are well-supported. (I have both). The CD-RW drive should have no problem either (as far as I know, you don't need drivers for those - just some configuration stuff like SCSI emulation, which isn't too hard).

Of course the kernel is what matters most concerning device drivers, I agree there. But for some devices there are other ways. Looking at your specs, you shouldn't have any problem with any recent Linux distro. Of course, as mentioned by others, you will need to get the video drivers from nVidia.