I've read quite a bit over the web and I still don't seem to understand how linux drivers work. For example getting a wireless driver to work work in linux system. I've read stuff about loading the kernel module and then adding the module to a certain file so that it actually loads etc. I've seen examples of how people do it but they still confuse me and when trying them out I haven't gotten it to work yet. Could someone please help me understand or point me in the right direction of how this works?
This is the best article I found on it, but still haven't trouble understanding it.
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/t...ls/1019/1/
Firstly, "drivers" in windows (VXD files) are known as "modules" in *nix (.so files = Shared Objects) and usually live in a directory like /usr/lib/modules.
However, you don't need to go near that fact. If you want to see what modules you have loaded, try the "lsmod" command. You may also like to try out "lshw" or "lshal", as well as "dmesg" to get more info about hardware.
To instruct the kernel to bring in specific modules there were the older "depmod" and "insmod" commands, but nowadays you generally edit the /etc/modprobe.conf file and specify a module name against an alias.
I don't know a great deal about the latter, but I know to get a network card to work I had to install the "tg3" module (ensured tg3.so file was in the modules dir) then added:
to my modprobe.conf file. After that it worked a treat.
If you want specific hardware to work under Linux (and it isn't natively supported) then googling for that part code usually uncovers some equivalent module. It's then just a matter of whacking the file into the right area and then tell the kernel to use that module - much like Windows, except not as graphical. It's what I did above!
Hope that helps. What hardware are you trying to get working?
I'm trying to get my wireless working; in ubuntu it works out of the box. but in CentOS and debian it doesn't. As a linux user I want to be able to get know how to get my hardware working or know where to look how to get it working. Yeah usually google, but it's handy to know what I'm looking for. This is my wireless card:
http://www.linksysbycisco.com/NL/nl/products/WMP300N