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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Is there a program that I can run on my laptop to tell me what Linux distro supports the hardware out of the box? Also whether the hardware is supported at all? (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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My laptop is an MSI Sword 15 A11UD. But I'm really looking for a program that analyses and projects problem areas and supported/unsupported hardware

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

here's an example using my wifi card on my laptop; here i use lscpi and i've copy/pasted the stanza that pertains to the wifi card:

me@laptop:~$ lspci -v
[REMOVED]
00:14.3 Network controller: Intel Corporation Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi (rev 01)
        DeviceName: Onboard - Ethernet
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Dual Band Wi-Fi 6(802.11ax) AX201 160MHz 2x2 [Harrison Peak]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16, IOMMU group 9
        Memory at 601d18c000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi
        Kernel modules: iwlwifi
[REMOVED]

i can see that the driver name is iwlwifi and i can use that to look for related modules using lsmod:

me@laptop:~$ lsmod | grep iwlwifi
iwlwifi               598016  1 iwlmvm
cfg80211             1318912  3 iwlmvm,iwlwifi,mac80211

now i know all of the module names and i can either google them to learn how to install them or i can continue further with the package manager on the installation to further backwards engineer it. (googling is faster).

as i mentioned earlier there are caveats: downstream distros tend to use a slightly older version of their base distros so you also need to make sure that you're using the same version of the driver and kernel and adjust accordingly if it doesn't start working right away.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Also do "dmesg | grep -i firmware" to see what firmware loads the kernel squirted into the various device controllers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Fantastic, this is extremely helpful, thank you! 🥇 I wanted to test a couple of distros for my Thinkpad, and I'll make sure to check and save this kind of information from live USBs.