Linux Driver Issues
Discussions center on challenges with Linux hardware drivers, including vendors' reluctance to upstream open-source drivers to the mainline kernel, proprietary driver compatibility problems, and the lack of a stable driver API.
Activity Over Time
Top Contributors
Keywords
Sample Comments
What is the Linux driver situation and how is it bad in ways that other non-Windows FOSS OSes would be able to mitigate?
Linux isn't blameless for this problem, because they religiously enforce that drivers must be open source.
Wouldn't be a problem if hardware would have drivers in mainline kernel
They have out of tree drivers. If they don't ship the hardware to end users, it's not clear upstream (Linux kernel) would want them.
Hardware manufacturers caring about their drivers in mainline Linux.
This is because hardware manufacturers don't upstream drivers.
Arguably even Linux has given up in open drivers by allowing opaque firmware blobs.
the drivers generally do not get upstreamed by the vendors
Linux would also require drivers to be recompiled for a new kernel. This is not an option for most proprietary drivers for products long abandoned by the manufacturer.For the more common and popular hardware there is a good chance that open source drivers can be maintained by the community but if your laptop relies on a somewhat obscure chipset or microcontroller then your mileage will vary...a lot. Look up "Intel GMA500 Linux driver" if you need an example of the pain.Sometimes
This is not correct.Many manufacturers contribute drivers to the kernel.