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Is there a program that I can run on my laptop to tell me what Linux distro supports the hardware out of the box? Also whether the hardware is supported at all?

My laptop is an MSI Sword 15 A11UD. But I'm really looking for a program that analyses and projects problem areas and supported/unsupported hardware

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  • What works/doesn't work is mostly down to what version of the kernel a distro ships. Most hardware drivers will be compiled into the kernel, or if not, shipped with the distro as kernel modules which get loaded as needed. Either way, the kernel version determines what is and isn't possible on a given install.

    DualSense 5 support for example was introduced in Linux Kernel 5.15, IIRC.

    Most distros ship a relatively up-to-date kernel, and hence, the actual hardware support is essentially identical. When it isn't, it's down to excluded/included kernel modules, which is usually something you can change if needed.

    Others have already commented on the actual ways to find out what will and won't work, but in general, a newer Linux kernel means better hardware support.

    If you try something, and some things don't work, you'll either have to figure out how to install and load the appropriate kernel module to get the appropriate driver working, or simply swap out the whole kernel for a newer version.

    This is tricky on some installs, like Ubuntu based distros, very impractical on immutable systems, and super easy on distros like arch.

    The real complications come when configuring things that Linux doesn't just automatically figure out sometimes. Fingerprint sensors, fan curves... If that stuff isn't a known and implemented standard on a given device, getting it to work isn't a matter of finding the right distro or kernel version.

  • If the distro just boots into a live session, you can get a pretty good idea there. They're all working off of roughly the same kernel and driver and firmware sets, give or take some distros being a year out of date. The slower distros have something like "backports" or "enablement kernels" to still give you the option of pulling in newer stuff.

    The graphics situation (compositor and mesa and kernel drivers and userland driver libraries) is more complicated. Especially with Nvidia. Your distro choice makes a much bigger impact there.

  • Second hwtest suite.

    Distros just ship packages, some rare drivers may be missing, distros have different versions of drivers, some are external and packagers just take proprietary code and make it compatible, like with NVIDIA on Fedora.

  • Linux has live ISOs. Flash one on a USB stick, boot off of it and mess around. Generally, these days, everything except the fingerprint sensor/facial recognition thing and sometimes wifi adapter will work out of the box.

34 comments