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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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determining why/how hardware is supported in one distro but not another? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 7 months ago by linuxPIPEpower@discuss.tchncs.de to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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For a given device, sometimes one linux distro perfectly supports a hardware component. Then if I switch distros, the same component no longer functions at all, or is very buggy.

How do I find out what the difference is?

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[–] mumblerfish@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

A lot of the answers here are mentioning the kernel. The version of it and what not. Look, the distro compiles the kernel for you, they are not gonna support literally everything but they have to make a choice. That choice is stored in the "kernel config". If you have one distro working and another one not, compare the two configs. It's gonna take a lot of work to parse through, there are many config settings. But where do you start to look? Most distros have their config published in two places: /boot/config-, for any installed kernel, or /proc/config.gz (cat /proc/config.gz | gunzip to read), for your running kernel. Get the two files from the distros, compare, find what seems relevant, make the changes (I only know how to do this in gentoo), and test.

[–] linuxPIPEpower@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 7 months ago

But where do you start to look? Most distros have their config published in two places: /boot/config-, for any installed kernel, or /proc/config.gz (cat /proc/config.gz | gunzip to read), for your running kernel.

Thanks for understanding the question and providing a concrete answer of a place to look! I will do this. :)