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I clicked around a bit, but can't understand how would this inform my decision of purchasing a part that's compatible with Linux. Say I search for a laptop gra
by optymizer 5y ago
I clicked around a bit, but can't understand how would this inform my decision of purchasing a part that's compatible with Linux.
Say I search for a laptop graphics card model and find that 4000 people are using it in their builds. That only tells me that it's minimally functional, not that it actually works at full features.
For example, it could be the that the video drivers for that card don't support[ 3d acceleration for Linux and people are just fine without it because they don't play games anyway. This info is missing.
Basically, I'd think a qualitative approach would be more useful than quantitative approach. I want to know that the thing I buy is going to work properly, not that I was suckered into buying something along with 1000 other people.
To give a real example this time, the Wi-Fi card I bought works fine under Windows, but the Broadcom drivers available in the Ubuntu distro didn't work properly at the time, so I had to go the old route of finding drivers that worked and then recompile the kernel modules on every kernel update. It got rather annoying fast. Linux Hardware Database would mark me as a user of this card (which would be correct), but it falsely implies that it's worth buying, which I think it isn't.
- bombcar 5y agoI see some little (i) on "works" on some of mine from my report, so perhaps it's more for negative reporting about things that don't work well? Who knows; you never find out about all the issues with any hardware until after you buy it.
- auraham 5y agoI have seen those (i) too on WiFi cards. After checking it, I think it means that such WiFi cards only work with some distros. For example [1], it does not work with Ubuntu 20.04 but it does work with Ubuntu 21.04. [1] http://linux-hardware.org/?id=pci:8086-2725-8086-0024 http://linux-hardware.org/?id=pci:8086-2725-8086-0024
- bombcar 5y agoDistros losing support for hardware makes me sad.
- arein3 5y agoGood point, when planning to run linux on a laptop better get a one with an amd gpu and intel wifi (or ethernet) Although that combination seems strange, because seems like an intel wifi chip would be present only on an intel cpu motherboard, and intel cpus are usually paired with nvidia gpu Is there a wifi chip with good drivers for amd laptops?
- goosedragons 5y agoYes, an Intel WiFi card. A lot of laptops have the WiFi card installed as an M.2 card or mini-PCIe and is replaceable. You can get an Intel AX210 for less than $30 for example. Realtek also has some cards with drivers in the kernel.
- arein3 4y agoDidn't know they are easy to swap, thanks for the info