Proprietary drivers

Proprietary drivers

[Ali Aminian]

Hello
I am wondering how should i install proprietary drivers on mainline
kernel. I have NVIDIA Corporation G98M [GeForce 9300M GS] graphic
chipset and Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 network adapter. in Broadcom
case the driver source is available although the compilation process
is not very clear to me but nvidia source code is not available and i
don't know if there is a way to use drivers available in ubuntu's
repository.
My linux distribution is Ubuntu 14.04 and when i install mainline
kernel these two hardware stop working.
And also how can i find linux certified laptop. i mean a laptop  that
has all its driver in linux source tree. i have seen ubuntu certified
laptops that again use nvidia chipsets.
thank you

Proprietary drivers

[Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu]

On Wed, 17 Dec 2014 00:39:40 +0330, Ali Aminian said:

> I am wondering how should i install proprietary drivers on mainline
> kernel. I have NVIDIA Corporation G98M [GeForce 9300M GS] graphic
> chipset and Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 network adapter. in Broadcom
> case the driver source is available although the compilation process
> is not very clear to me but nvidia source code is not available and i
> don't know if there is a way to use drivers available in ubuntu's
> repository.

In general, proprietary drivers should come with installation instructions.
You get the NVidia driver from either NVidia, or Ubuntu, there should be
some documentation on how to get it installed.

> And also how can i find linux certified laptop. i mean a laptop  that
> has all its driver in linux source tree. i have seen ubuntu certified
> laptops that again use nvidia chipsets.

There's the open-source nouveau driver for nvidia.  Run that and install Mesa,
and you're pretty much all open.  Performance? Depends what you're doing.
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Proprietary drivers

[Jeff Haran]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: kernelnewbies-bounces at kernelnewbies.org [mailto:kernelnewbies-
> bounces at kernelnewbies.org] On Behalf Of Ali Aminian
> Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 1:10 PM
> To: Kernelnewbies at kernelnewbies.org
> Subject: Proprietary drivers
> 
...
> And also how can i find linux certified laptop. i mean a laptop  that has all its
> driver in linux source tree. 

This seems to be quite a challenge even today. The last time I was in the market for a laptop (early 2014), I did some research first and decided on a Lenovo since they had a rep for good Linux support.

Even then I had to install 3 different distros (1 Suse and 2 Ubuntus) before I arrived at one that supported the hardware (and in the case of one of the Ubuntus would actually make it through the installation without hanging, repeatedly). In my case it wasn't the graphics that was the problem. It was the wireless and/or Ethernet.

I suspect the best bet these days is buy the laptop, put it in a box for a couple of months then try to install the latest version of your favorite distro. This gives the distros time to catch up with all the new, ever-so-slightly-different-and-thus-not-supported-by-current-Linux-drivers-but-5-cents-per-part-cheaper hardware they put in these things.

Jeff Haran