understanding hardware support

[Charles Crawford]

Debee,

         You are not alone.  After a year or so of being involved with 
Linux, I love the operating system and am still struggling with certain 
concepts.  I don't know if I ever will get to the level of understanding of 
a Bill or Janina, but they have been helpful and every so often a light 
goes off in my head and something makes good sense.  I build upon those 
knowledge chunks and things sort of work pretty well.  Hang in there and 
the fruit is worth the planting and caring for this new tree.

-- Charlie Crawford.
At 03:48 PM 04/27/2004, you wrote:
> >I highly suggest you consider just installing one of the Linux
>distributions instead of tweaking zipspeak to meet this
> >particular need, and the next particular need, and the one after that, etc.
>
>You are probably right. I will work on clearing off a hard disk on my
>desktop this weekend to do that. I literally couldn't figure out how to get
>another distro on the laptop; its floppy isn't supported by Linux and I have
>no PCMCIA CD-rom.  and I guess I convinced myself that having a
>stripped-down Linux and having to tweak it would be a fantastic way to
>learn.
>
>It's typical of me that I frequently try doing things the hard way. What
>intrigues me about having Linux on a laptop, rather than my desktop at home,
>is that I can use my otherwise borring commute to actively learn stuff.
>Also, I could take it around to people when I need help.  You know, just
>open my purse and show them the error message!
>
>But what I need most now is just a clearer definition of terms. People bandy
>about these terms with no definitions, so are moddules, device drivers and
>kernel patches all the same thing? What's the difference between a
>"loadable" module, an "external" module and the other kind of modules?
>
>I understand that compiling your own kernel lets you build a personal
>system, so you're including drivers only for your personal hardware.  But
>I've also been told that loading external modules does this too. And I've
>been told that kernels include some hardware support already, that kernels
>load modules automatically, that support for a particular device won't be
>enabled unless you edit a specific file, etc. And then there are patches and
>drivers, which may or may not be synonyms.
>
>When I got started in computing, some two decades ago, it drove me crazy to
>read about installing, configuring, setting up, and initializing. Manuals
>would contain passages like: "First initialize your disk, after you've
>patched the bdos for your video controller,  then you can set up to begin
>installing and configuring your system."  I feel a little like this today
>with Linux, and the vague way in which much about hardware support is
>documented.
>
>I've been a technical writer, so I find myself screaming about the lack of
>clarity and precision.
>
>--Debee
>
>
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