Topic: installing NIC and other drivers

[daveT]

Okay, I'm another newbie.  I've looked and searched nearly all of the forums for information on how to install NIC or other drivers (like hardware RAID) on SME or MAS or whatever your're calling it.

The only reference I've seen, seems to indicate that it's common knowledge and references another thread that doesn't really give a procedure.  Thing is. I can add it with out problems on RH7.2.

If this is not the proper place to ask this please let me know where that is, or where I should look. I'll post the details once I know where to do it, as it seems there is enough bad karma on these forums already.

[Kelvin]

Hi Dave,

>Okay, I'm another newbie.

Welcome to the world of Linux.

>Thing is. I can add it with out problems on RH7.2.

You can probably do it with RH 7.3, RH8 etc, too. Can't get the same to work for SME ? Welcome to the world of SME !

The problem with drivers is the kernel. In Linux, drivers are mostly (if not completely) kernel specific. As SME uses a different kernel to what you find in standard download versions of RedHat, you will not be able to use the drivers you have for RedHat unless you have one that matches the kernel used by SME. Unfortunately, whenever a kernel gets upgraded / updated, even if the changes made to the kernel do not affect your driver functionality (eg. a kernel upgrade to address a security issue, but does not affect storage devices, etc), the drivers will not install because the kernel version is now different.

Does this suck when compared to Windows ? Yes it does. What can you do ? Nothing except to stick to the few "supported" brands and models of hardware. Does this reduce consumer choice ? Yes it does. Welcome to the world of Linux. Other than that, hope you have a blast with it !

Kelvin