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1. Introduction

NOTE: USB is not yet supported by Linux.

1.1 Welcome

Welcome to the Linux Hardware Compatibility HOWTO. This document lists most of the hardware components (not computers with components build in) supported by Linux, so reading through this document you can choose the components for your own Linux computer. As the list of components supported by Linux is growing rapidly, this document will never be complete. So, when components are not mentioned in this HOWTO, the only reason will be that I don't know they are supported. I simply have not found support for the component and/or nobody has told me about support.

Subsections titled 'Alpha, Beta drivers' list hardware with alpha or beta drivers in varying degrees of usability. Note that some drivers only exist in alpha kernels, so if you see something listed as supported but isn't in your version of the Linux kernel, upgrade.

The latest version of this document can be found on http://users.bart.nl/~patrickr/hardware-howto/Hardware-HOWTO.html, SunSite and all the usual mirror sites. Translations of this and other Linux HOWTO's can be found at http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/translations and ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/translations.

If you know of any Linux hardware (in)compatibilities not listed here please let me know, just send mail.

Still need some help selecting components after reading this document? Check the "Build Your Own PC" site at http://www.verinet.com/pc/.

Want to have a preconfigured Linux system? Have a look at http://www.linuxresources.com/web/.

1.2 Copyright

Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999 Patrick Reijnen

This HOWTO is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free software Foundation; either version 2 of the license, or (at your option) any later version.

This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You can obtain a copy of the GNU General Public License by writing to the Free Software Foundation,, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

If you use this or any other Linux HOWTO's in a commercial distribution, it would be nice to send the authors a complimentary copy of your product.

1.3 System architectures

This document only deals with Linux for Intel platforms, for other platforms check the following:

• ARM Linux
  http://www.arm.uk.linux.org/
• Linux/68k
  http://www.clark.net/pub/lawrencc/linux/index.html
• Linux/8086 (The Embeddable Linux Kernel Subset)
  http://www.linux.org.uk/ELKS-Home/index.html
• Linux/Alpha
  http://www.azstarnet.com/~axplinux/
• Linux/MIPS
  http://www.fnet.fr/linux-mips/
• Linux/PowerPC
  http://www.linuxppc.org/
• Linux for Acorn
  http://www.ph.kcl.ac.uk/~amb/linux.html
• Linux for PowerMac
  http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/os/Linux/mklinux/mkarchive/info/index.html