Linux unlike windows has virtually every driver you will ever need already in it. So for most people you will never have to deal with drivers on linux.
- As with all things there are a couple exceptions. Linux will run perfectly fine on just about any graphics card you could ever hope to come across right out of the box, but to get 3D acceleration on ATI or Nvidia gpus you need to install proprietary Graphics drivers, in Ubuntu thats a one click job and you are prompted, there is no trawling the internet trying how to figure this out, its so simple you'll be wondering if you missed something.
- Some wifi cards don't work straight off. If your particular wifi card has a linux driver it will just work straight off. If it doesn't there are options Madwifi is little piece of software that lets you use the windows driver for the wifi card on linux. But thats hassle.
So if your interested in linux but are scared it might not run on your hardware, here is what to do, at no risk to your current installed OS.
Live CD's are your friend when checking whether linux will run ok on your laptop/PC.
1) Download Ubuntu 8.04 from there website (Using ubuntu here purely because everyone these days seems to think that ubuntu IS linux)
2) burn it to CD
3) insert CD into laptop
4) restart the computer
5) Let the CD boot up (This wont do a thing to your HDD, don't worry its not going to nuke windows)
5.5) wait
6) if you get to the desktop, try connecting to the internet by wifi
7) if you got to the desktop and you can connect to the internet i would be 99.99% certain that you will not have any driver issues and you can click on the icon called install (clicking install obvious will do stuff to your HDD :P)
Don't shoot the wounded |
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