Drivers. Which drivers?

October 25, 2007 |

For years, the OSDL and Linux Foundation workgroups have stated that driver support for Linux is one of the top issues for Linux deployments. The 2007 Desktop Linux Survey brings out the same issue. Check out the responses to the following questions:

How important are the following potential issues to your organization’s decision to migrate to Linux on the Desktop?

Missing driver support was the top response at 43.8%.

Where should the Linux desktop community focus their efforts in 2008 to speed the adoption Linux on the desktop?

62.5% of the respondents said that “Open source drivers for proprietary hardware” was the top priority.

The Linux community itself has made available over 200 driver writers and 10 project managers to help create device drivers. But they are asking the question, “Which drivers?”. A wiki has been set up to collect this driver information, and the list is growing.

The 2007 Desktop Linux survey does not yield the kind of detail that identifies specific drivers. In the desktop
community, the major devices that need open source drivers are the video drivers and the wireless drivers. In video space, ATI is getting there, but Nvidia is the big one. In wireless space, there there are several
chipsets that have no support or the support is flaky. As an example, I recently bought a cheap Airlink 101 USB wireless adapter at Frys. This adapter line had worked for me on Linux in the past (with the Orinoco
chipset), but the new adapters (AWLL3026) are not even recognized as USB devices. Not sure, but I believe the AWLL3026 uses a broadcom chipset.

The kernel community is asking, “Which drivers?” Let’s tell them.

Popularity: 59% [?]

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.