Hardware supported in Linux

[pandronic]

What major hardware companies write drivers for Linux? Or what plans are there for the future?

[Refalm]

If there was an award for the best Linux drivers, nVidia would win it.

[KernelPanic]

Promise, but drivers for their stuff are in the kernel anyway.

[pandronic]

Is that hard for a company to do Linux drivers after they do Windows drivers - I just don't get it. Is the Linux market so unatractive?

[KernelPanic]

They are too scared of losing favour with MS to show tacit support for Linux.

[Refalm]

quote:pandronic: Is that hard for a company to do Linux drivers after they do Windows drivers - I just don't get it. Is the Linux market so unatractive?

Depends. The main reason for nVidia to make Linux drivers is because of all the professionals that render 3D animation with something like Maya.

When a company decides not to make a Linux driver, the driver has to be made by the OSS community. It's mostly succesful (not always... when nVidia did only Windows/Mac OS drivers, there was no chance of playing modern games on Linux, unless you had an 3dfx card).

[pandronic]

What about other manufacturers? And I'm not only talking about gfx cards?

Are there any other?

[KernelPanic]

There are probably a fair few more, but what does it matter? OSS drivers fill the gaps usually.

Are you interested in some particular hardware?

[Refalm]

D-Link and Realtek also make Linux drivers for their NIC's.

[WMD]

Hardware support for Linux is slowly getting better, but you still have to buy hardware for Linux most of the time (as opposed to buying whatever hardware you want).

A good place to look is the LinuxQuestions.org Hardware Compatibility List.  It lists hard by type and company, then users post how they got a piece of hardware working.

EDIT:
 

quote:Is that hard for a company to do Linux drivers after they do Windows drivers - I just don't get it. Is the Linux market so unatractive?

Actually, writing Linux drivers can be easier than writing Windows ones, because the source code is available.  However, they see a market share "issue" right away without even looking into it.
I think that writing Linux drivers would be good for a company - the community would be happy and the sales for that hardware would go up.

[ July 16, 2004: Message edited by: WMD ]

[pandronic]

quote:Originally posted by Tux:
There are probably a fair few more, but what does it matter? OSS drivers fill the gaps usually.

Are you interested in some particular hardware?

Not really. I was planning an upgrade and wanted to buy hardware that has good drivers written for it. I don't wanna use generic drivers, or have to boot into Windows just to use something.

Also I'm interested to see where Linux stands, because I think that the driver issue is now the main problem and not the lack of good software.

[ July 16, 2004: Message edited by: pandronic ]

[Refalm]

quote:pandronic: Not really. I was planning an upgrade and wanted to buy hardware that has good drivers written for it. I don't wanna use generic drivers, or have to boot into Windows just to use something.

Also I'm interested to see where Linux stands, because I think that the driver issue is now the main problem and not the lack of good software.

I choose my computer parts for Linux. This is what I have:

CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2600+ (because of the nForce2 chipset, and because AMD rocks)
SVGA: GeForce 4 MX 440 (Ati driver for Linux sucks)
Motherboard: nForce2 chipset (nVidia is probably the only company with decent Linux drivers, so the choice here is obvious)

That's it really to get the best Linux set up. If your motherboard doesn't contain an inbuilt NIC, choose one with a D-Link or Realtek chipset. And for a soundcard, you wanna go for a Creative one (if it's not already built-in your motherboard). All GeForce's and nForce's are supported for Linux, so feel free to go crazy  

[WMD]

My setup is somewhat different from Refalm's, but it's still supported pretty well in Linux.

Pentium 4 2.8Ghz Prescott (I wish for Northwood now    )
Video: GeForce FX 5700
Sound Realtek AC97 onboard.  Detected perfectly in Mandrake, Fedora, and even Slackware.
Network: Marvell Yukon Gigabit Ethernet, onboard.  With modern distros, a simple "modprobe sn98klin" gets the card working nicely.  Also I have a Linksys WUSB11v3, which has spotty support due to differing chipsets and NDAs on the datasheets for them.  I haven't gotten it going yet...I think I might have the Amtel version now, but I've been trying the Prism2 drivers.  
Motherboard: simple Intel i865 chipset.  No problems.

That's about it for me.  I don't have any special components - no local printer (networked), no digital camera, no webcam, none of that.  Not to say those things never work - some of them do, I just haven't had to try.

[hm_murdock]

I think Leroy Sloccum Slade Technologies makes "Waterhole Poisoner" drivers for Linux.

[Aloone_Jonez]

quote:Originally posted by pandronic:
Is that hard for a company to do Linux drivers after they do Windows drivers - I just don't get it. Is the Linux market so unatractive?

My guess is that Linux is a free operating system and theirs fuck all in it for them.

Both my digital camera and printer/scanner came with both Windows and Mac drivers.

Linux appears to be in a vicious circle at the moment, to get people to use it, you need drivers, but to get most hardware companies to write drivers, it has to have a large enough user base.

I can't see why Red Hat and other Linux companies don't invest more in hardware companies.