Or even modern hardware. I have seen very poor support for the onboard
features of modern motherboards. Often there is binary support from the
vendor but only for major distros or specific kernel releases. Such as
the ac97_codec that you mention. The boards all support the AC97
standard which means that once you get a driver for your specific
hardware you will then load the ac97_codec module. But the driver for
any modern VIA chipset is either binary only or alsa. Neither of which
are friendly to the midlevel linux hacker. (Not that alsa is bad just
that it is different and all documentation is written for OSS.) I find
that the cheaper and older the hardware the more likely it is to be
supported. But if you are willing to play with it there are usually
patches to be had or other drivers that will get most things working,
but somethings take much finesse.
Eric
On Tue, 17 Jun 2003, Jeffrey Pyne wrote:
> On Tuesday, June 17, 2003 9:23 AM, Miles Beck wrote:
>
> > I am hoping the new kernel will detect my lan and sound
> > adapter. I have been wanting to move to Linux but am
> > stopped cold by my hardware not being supported.
>
> What kind of hardware do you have? I would think that it would have to b=
e
> pretty esoteric or bleeding edge for it not to be supported by a recent
> distribution of Linux. Keep in mind that, unlike Windows, you will often
> not find a driver for your specific NIC, sound card or video card. Inste=
ad
> there will be generic support for the card's chipset. For example, it se=
ems
> that every El Cheapo=AE or on-board NIC I've run across recently uses the
> NE2000 driver under Linux, even though the card might be a DLink or a
> LinkSys. The onboard sound card on one of my Linux boxes (a Dell
> workstation) uses the ac97_codec driver, which supports 30 or 40 differen=
t
> chipsets.
>
> I hear that Knoppix is very good at detecting hardware. You could always
> boot off of a Knoppix CD, see how it detects your hardware and what drive=
rs
> it uses, and then use that information if your distribution of choice
> doesn't automagically detect your hardware when you install.
>
> If you already knew this, then just pretend I was never here. :)
>
> ~Jeff
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