try to find what kernel version support was added.
how to do this?
There’s no centralized database I’m aware of, it’s just googling hardware + “linux kernel” and hoping to come across something in a mail list. Admittedly, not ideal or always fruitful.
thanks, I never heard of dkms before. I read the arch wiki, wikipedia, and made an attempt at the github repo (very long and over my head). The arch wiki only mentions nvidia. Is this something I need if I am certain nvidia is not the problem? Or is it a general thing?
It’s a general thing, it was created to load kernel modules (drivers) without having to recompile the kernel entirely. Again without specifics of distro and hardware it’s hard to generalize an answer. With arch there’s probably a package in the AUR that could be used. (And the package will setup dkms for you). Doing it manually is a bit more involved but shouldn’t be much harder than cloning the repository and running a command inside the folder.
Off the top of my head some components I’ve had problems with: touchpads, touch screens, wifi, ethernet, bluetooth, audio in, audio out, media keys. I have suspected others also like (onboard intel) GPUs but it’s a little harder for me to even pin those problems down to the hardware.
So basically everything… Lol. Still hard to diagnose without specifics, vendor support varies wildly. A newer Intel wifi card is likely mainlined, while a realtek card is going to be living in hell. Ethernet is a weird one, I don’t think I’ve come across any vendors entirely not working but perhaps something like a Killer NIC (built with a proprietary protocol) could fail.
Many of these examples sound like a laptop, the arch wiki may have more information they cover a lot of popular models and note hardware capabilities. Usually if putting Linux on a laptop it’s about buying one with that intention in mind because it can be very uncertain. Laptop vendors do crazy things… use non compliant bios, proprietary media keys and finger readers, custom audio stacks to make them sound better, the list goes on.