Idea #238: More Hardware support.

467

Written by elvispt the 28 Feb 08 at 23:43. Category: System.
Related to: Nothing/Others. Status: New

Description

Add hardware more support (drivers). Not only for new hardware, of course this should be priority, but also for older hardware.

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Duplicates

Idea #5166: System analyser to report hardware compatibility (124 votes)

Idea #3576: Too much "unknown device" (70 votes)

Idea #1916: Hardware support and installation automagically via internet (20 votes)

Idea #1950: Beeter Hardware support (4 votes)

[Report a duplicate and merge its votes to this idea]

Comments

Veejay wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 02:29

This is more of a "manufacturers" problem here.

agentbrooks wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 07:21

and this is a duplicate of one with higher votes... does anyone even read these before they post new ones or vote?

bigdufstuff wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 14:46

What hardware in particular doesn't work? Maybe that should be reported as a bug.

I'm sure the developers know that users want their hardware to work in general.

casteyde wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 09:22

General hardware is well supported.
What is still a mess:
- printers (Canon, photo quality drivers);
- graphic cards (with 3D, ATI & NVidia);
- USB wifi dongles (many chips, 802.11n...);
- webcam (2 or 3 works, other is a pitty);
- TV cards/USB dongles (same);
- USB gadgets...
sometime there are out of date out of tree unsupported drivers, with partial support.

So there's still many places for improvements. Even if Linux support for older hardware is better than Windows (due to abandonned legacy drivers...), and even if linux supports more platforms than Windows (and more drivers globally).

Wifi is improving, graphics cards seem to get better thanks to Intel, AMD and Nouveau (shame on NVidia). But photo quality printing, webcam and TV is nearly not supported, face it.

Auzy wrote on the 8 Mar 08 at 07:21

Anyone voting for this should also consider voting for forking the kernel maybe. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3843/

One reason why things are a mess is that driver developers need to code a drivers for every kernel version, and kernel modules need constant recompiling. Forking the kernel will allow for a stable API/ABI. Ie, companies can compile a 2 or 3 kernel module's include it on CD with the hardware and get support out of the box. At the moment, they would have to code a module for every custom kernel.

This would be one step towards better support, because they have to put less effort in to support our kernels out of the box.

RussellGee wrote on the 14 Apr 08 at 19:47

Its up to the manufacturers to offer drivers for linux.Without support from them its near enough impossible.

dino wrote on the 16 Jun 08 at 13:44

Forking the kernel is a really bad idea. The kernel changes very fast. So if the next kernel comes out - what to do? Just stay with the old-modified? Merge? Merging all the time costs a lot of time.

There are a lot people and big companies spending time and money on the kernel, so ubuntu should profit from that ... what it can't if it forks.

The way to go would be to work on the kernel itself.

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/9837/

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