Re: Driver help
Forrest Cameranesi wrote:
>
> 1) Does Debian come with any drivers for my computer?
depends on the computer and what kind of hardware it runs
> 2) Do I have the drivers on the Debian install disk?
some of them are, some of them are not..depends on the hardware
> 3) From whom or where do I request the drivers?
search the www for them, many are built into the system, but some
are not(those that are not can be difficult to install)
> 4) Is there documentation on how to request or install the drivers?
nothing specific it varies from driver to driver, there are dozens of
sources for drivers each typically each one has its own way to install
them. very driver dependant
> 5) At what point or location do I get to install the drivers to make
> Debian able to locate my computer's hard drives and use my specific
> motherboard?
if it cannot locate the hard disk it would help if you told us exactly
what kind of disk controller you have and what kind of drives(ide/scsi/etc)
>
> Statements:
> 1) I will gladly pay for this information!
don't need to :) just be patient.
> 2) I do not have internet access beyond getting a non-Debian-using
> neighbor to type my hand-written request for me, as I don't type.
i would probably honestly reccomend against using linux then,
linux's biggest strengths in my view are it's networking and
internet based support. unless your computer is made up of
the most basic components internet access will be required
before/during and after installation and configuration.
> 3) He is my only access, and his Mac G4 does not have floppy drives,
> nor does it have a CD burner, etc.
not good ..
> 4) This is my first computer.
unless you know someone local that can help, i wouldn't go with
debian then. if you want linux probably its good to start with
mandrake or something. its not as good as debian at the core
but you can get used to what the system feels like and when
you do get net access you can move on to the more powerful
stuff. ive trained and assisted many many people(in person)
with debian and with linux/unix in general, it takes a lot
of time and patience and internet access of course!
> 5) I built my computer from OEM parts, and taught myself to load five
> versions of Microsoft operating systems.
thats a good start.
> 6) They crashed a lot.
hopefully the cause of the crashes was software and not hardware
related.
> Because I have no other means, I would like to obtain loadable hard
> copies of the drivers.
by the very nature of the linux kernel this is not likely to happen
unless the distribution you choose has such drivers ready on the installer
cd. unless your hardware is very generic in which case there will
be no trouble.
>
> 1) Supermicro P6 DGU 440GX 82443 GX-family chipset motherboard using
> upgraded flash BIOS R03.0 DGU 4061 ROM. The original BIOS was
> super.ROM. (Has built-in SCSI RAID support).
nice mainboard..should work well.
> 2) My CPU is an Intel Pentium III running at 450Mhz.
well supported cpu
> 3) I am attempting to load Debian version 2.2 with GNOME 1.2.1, and
> the Opera web browser.
not sure about opera it may require anew ver of glibc but im not
sure .......been a while since i used it.
> 4) I have a 3Com USR 56K Voice/Faxmodem.
external(hopefully)? or internal? if internal exactly what is the
model# ? must be specific, and/or what is the FCC ID.
> 5) One Toshiba SCSI2UW 40X CD-ROM.
nice drive. should work fine.
> 6) One SoundBlaster LIVE! sound card
should work fine too, although i don't know if debian supports
it out of the box.
> 7) One 3DLabs Oxygen GVX 210 Dualhead Video card.
this i have no idea about ........don't know what kind of
chip this is. may or may not work ..check www.xfree86.org/3.3.6/
(i think that url is right) for more info ..
> 8) One Viewsonic VPA150 Flat monitor.
should work fine ..
> 9) One Logitech Trackman Marble FX trackball.
should work fine
> 10) Three IBM 9.1GB SCSI2UW HDs.
> 11) One generic 3.5" floppy drive.
should work fine ..
>
> I will be building a stripe set across the three HDs. I am teaching
> myself these tasks. Without drivers that come on some form of disk
> that I can use, I can't continue. So far, people have asked various
> questions or said to ask the Debian developers and users. But noone
> has replied to my request for the drivers.
for the basic stuff it should just work. i have a similar 440GX
board next to me with dual P2-450s and 1GB of ram, and debian
2.2 detected everything out of the box. very generic hardware
as far as debian is concerned. as for the stripe set ...that
is not as easy under debian, i wouldn't be concered with it
right away..learn the system before doing advanced stuff like
raid.
>
> How can I find a hard copy of the drivers? Anticipating that I will
> need various drivers, I included the above list. If I need to supply
> serial numbers or ven numbers I will be happy to do so.
with the exception of the video card everything should work good.
linux, unlike some other systems comes with support for tons of hardware
out of the box(because it has to), unlike other systems most vendors
do not provide "ready-to-go" downloadable drivers for linux.
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