NewsForge: Linux 2.4 hardware support: Several improvements

“For years many people, myself included, have talked about the
lack of support under Linux for many devices. Linux is gaining
momentum and as it does, the support for it increases. However,
while third-party support is great, perhaps the most important
element of hardware support is the extent to which Linux supports
hardware by default in the kernel.”

“Not only does Linux 2.4 have increased support for various
devices, but it changes the way in which it handles many previous
supported devices. Hardware support becomes more effecient, the
possibility for data loss lessens, 3D games run (or if they ran
before, they run better), and overall the world becomes a better
place.”

“Linux 2.4 now supports a wider range of hardware, not
surprising, every major kernel revision has had more hardware
supported than the last. In fact, 2.2 to 2.4 is not quite the
profound change 2.0 to 2.2 was.”

“However, one can argue that about the the importance of the
devices supported in 2.4. For instance, 2.4 now has support for USB
devices. And while it has room for improvement, this is definately
an important step for Linux in moving onto the desktop….”

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