steve@silug.org
Copyright © 2001 by Steven Pritchard
Copyright © 1997-1999 by Patrick Reijnen
2001-10-18
| Revision History | ||
|---|---|---|
| Revision 3.0.7 | 2001-10-18 | Revised by: sjp |
| Started fixing dead links. (Thanks to Rob Janssen, Shaul Karl, Charles McColm, and Paul Stephenson for the corrections.) | ||
| Revision 3.0.6 | 2001-09-14 | Revised by: sjp |
| Started cleaning up incompatible hardware section. | ||
| Revision 3.0.5 | 2001-09-04 | Revised by: sjp |
| Updated CPU and motherboards sections. Added WAN Cards section and removed old "Frame Relay", "X.25", and "Synchronous PPP, Cisco HDLC" sections under Network adapters. | ||
| Revision 3.0.4 | 2001-06-25 | Revised by: sjp |
| Updated Network adapters and Controllers (multiport) sections to include current Cyclades products. (Thanks to Ivan Passos at Cyclades for the update.) | ||
| Revision 3.0.3 | 2001-05-28 | Revised by: sjp |
| Added USB section. Added note on non-x86 hardware to CPU section. Updated Motherboards section. Added a link to the Sound HOWTO in the Sound cards section. Folded Related sources of information section into introduction and removed dead links. | ||
| Revision 3.0.2 | 2001-05-10 | Revised by: sjp |
| LDP-requested cleanup. | ||
| Revision 3.0.1 | 2001-05-07 | Revised by: sjp |
| Updated modems section. | ||
| Revision 3.0.0 | 2001-04-22 | Revised by: sjp |
| First DocBook version. Various updates. | ||
This document lists most of the hardware components (not whole computers) known to be supported or not supported under Linux, so reading through this document you can choose the components for your own Linux computer and know what to avoid. As the list of components supported by Linux changes constantly, this document will never be complete. If a component is not mentioned in this HOWTO, I simply have not found support for the component and 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.
Some devices are supported by binary-only modules; avoid these when you can. Binary-only modules are modules which are compiled for ONE kernel version. The source code for these modules has NOT been released. This may prevent you from upgrading or maintaining your system. It will also prevent you from using the component on alternate (usually non-x86) architectures.
Linus Torvalds says "I allow binary-only modules, but I want people to know that they are _only_ ever expected to work on the one version of the kernel that they were compiled for." (See http://lwn.net/1999/0211/a/lt-binary.html for the rest of the message.)
Various commercial drivers for sound, video, etc. exist for Linux. Tracking these commercial drivers is beyond the scope of this document. These drivers might be mentioned at various points in this document, but note that no effort has been made to make sure that this information is current.
This document primarily deals with Linux for x86-based platforms. For other platforms, check the following:
There are also the ELKS and uClinux ports, which are forks of the mainstream kernel source designed for MMU-less (mostly very low-end and embedded) systems.
The LDP has an index of hardware-related HOWTO documents.
Price Watch (street price search engine, also useful for finding specs on various bits of hardware)
This document can't possibly be up-to-date at all times. I would like to see this document be a useful reference again. The following items need to be fixed for that to happen:
Old cruft needs to be eliminated. Much of this document was written in 1995, give or take, when PCI was new and not supported terribly well, and ISA PnP was seen as something evil. Oh, how the times have changed...
Also, many of the model numbers listed in this document are no longer available, and are probably not of much interest to the vast majority of people. Personally, I think hardware that hasn't been available for more than 5 years or so can safely be removed. Old versions of this document will always be available on the Internet...
URLs in this document need updating. I've begun to do that, but it is a big job... Diffs are welcome.
In the process of updating and converting this document to DocBook, some cruft was introduced. If anyone wants to help clean up this, get the latest source (preferably by emailing me at <steve@silug.org>) and grep for "FIXME".
Lists in this HOWTO that are available in other HOWTOs or FAQs need to be either updated here or dropped completely from this document. (A good example is the list of video cards supported by XFree86.)
Newer interfaces such as USB need to be added into the list. (Would a USB-attached hard drive go under "USB", "Removable drives", "Hard drives", or all of the above?)
And, of course, random hardware that just isn't listed in this document needs to be added.
All of this is going to require a lot of work. If this happens to interest you, please email <steve@silug.org>. I can use the help. :-)
The latest version of this document can be found on the Linux Documentation Project home site or any of its many mirrors.
If you have questions or comments about this document, please feel free to email Steven Pritchard at <steve@silug.org>. I also welcome corrections and additions. At some point in the near future, I plan to set up a web interface for adding components to this document. In the mean time, please just use the word "hardware" somewhere in the subject when sending corrections or additions.
This document has passed through many hands. I don't know if he wrote the first version, but in 1993 Ed Carp was maintaining it. In August of 1994, FRiC (Boy of Destiny) took over. After he fell off the face of the planet in late 1995 or early 1996 (and we all miss him from IRC, I might add), Patrick Reijnen took over (sometime in 1997) and continued to maintain this document until late 1999.
Recent versions of this document contained the following:
Thanks to all the authors and contributors of other HOWTO's, many things here are shamelessly stolen from their works; to FRiC, Zane Healy and Ed Carp, the original authors of this HOWTO; and to everyone else who sent in updates and feedbacks. Special thanks to Eric Boerner and lilo (the person, not the program) for the sanity checks. And thanks to Dan Quinlan for the original SGML conversion.
Many thanks to all those who have contributed to this document over the years.
In addition, I'd like to thank the many members of the Southern Illinois Linux Users Group and the Linux Users of Central Illinois for giving me so many interesting problems to solve over the years, and, of course, my wife Kara for putting up with me all these years. :-)
ISA, VLB, EISA, PCI, and AGP buses are all supported. All recent motherboards should work fine, although certain integrated controllers may or may not work well (or at all).
Please note that this is by no means a complete list. Please send updates.
| Manufacturer | Model Number | Description | Notes |
| Intel | STL2 | ServerWorks chipset, dual Socket 370 (PIII), integrated video (ATI), ethernet (eepro100), and dual-channel SCSI (aic7xxx) | |
| Intel | 815EEA, 815EEA2L | Intel 815 chipset, Socket 370 (PIII/Celeron), integrated video, audio, ethernet (815EEA2L only) | video, sound, ethernet, etc. are all supported, although they require recent kernels and XFree86 |
| SuperMicro | 370DL3 | ServerWorks chipset, dual Socket 370 (PIII), integrated ethernet (eepro100), SCSI (aic7xxx) | |
| SuperMicro | 370DLE | ServerWorks chipset, dual Socket 370 (PIII), integrated ethernet (eepro100) | |
| SuperMicro | P6DGE | Intel 440GX chipset, dual Slot 1 (PII/PIII/Celeron) | |
| SuperMicro | P6DBE | Intel 440BX chipset, dual Slot 1 (PII/PIII/Celeron) | |
| Soyo | SY-K7VTA-B | VIA KT133 chipset, Socket A, integrated ATA/100 and AC97 audio | |
| Tyan | Thunder K7 (S2462NG/S2462UNG/S2462UNGM) | AMD 760MP chipset, dual Athlon MP, integrated video (ATI RAGE XL), dual ethernet (2 x 3Com 3C920), dual-channel SCSI (Adaptec AIC-7899W - S2462UNG/S2462UNGM only) | Early models apparently had bugs. Be sure you have a recent BIOS and a recent 2.2.x or 2.4.x kernel. |
The following are old notes and are probably out of date.
IBM PS/2 MCA systems
Supported since kernel version 2.0.7, but only for the stable kernel releases. For information you can look at the Micro Channel Linux Home Page. Software for MCA systems can be found here. Information on the MCA SCSI subsystem can be found here.
EFA E5TX-AT motherboard has a solvable problem with RedHat Linux 5.0 and possibly other versions of Linux. It spontaneously reboots while probing hardware. To solve, update BIOS to version 1.01. Get the BIOS update here.
The Edom MP080 motherboard needs a BIOS flash for Linux to work. Without the BIOS flash Linux will reboot during the hardware scan. For the BIOS flash check here and here.
The Zida 6MLX motherboard with PII Intel LX chipset is mentioned only to work with Linux when the PII cache is disabled in BIOS. BIOS upgrade does not solve the problem. Symptom is random reboots during or shortly after system boot.
Supermicro P5MMA with BIOS versions 1.36, 1.37 and 1.4. Linux will not boot on this motherboard. A new (beta) release of the BIOS which makes Linux boot, is available here.
Supermicro P5MMA98. Linux will not boot on this motherboard. A new (beta) release of the BIOS which makes Linux boot, is available here.
DataExpert Corp. ExpertColor TX531 V1.0 motherboard with chipset ACER M1531 (Date: 9729, TS6) and ACER M1543 (Date: 9732 TS6) seems to present not reproducible segmentations faults, kernel oops and kernel hangs under heavy load and tape access. The problem seems to be the PCI-bus, respectively the ACER chipset.
For more information about Linux and laptops, the following site is a good starting point.
Other information related to laptops can be found at the following sites:
PCMCIA drivers currently support all common PCMCIA controllers, including Databook TCIC/2, Intel i82365SL, Cirrus PD67xx, and Vadem VG-468 chipsets. Motorola 6AHC05GA controller used in some Hyundai laptops is not supported. See Appendix B for a list of supported PCMCIA cards.
Please see this note for more on non-x86 hardware.
Intel 386SX/DX/SL, 486SX/DX/SL/SX2/DX2/DX4, Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III (regular and Xeon versions), Pentium 4, and Celeron are all supported.
AMD 386SX/DX, 486SX/DX/DX2/DX4, K5, K6, K6-2, K6-3, and Athlon (all varieties, including MP) are all supported. Older versions of K6 should be avoided as they are buggy. Setting "internal cache" disabled in bios setup can be a workaround. Some early K6-2 300Mhz have problems with the system chips.
The old NexGen processors are also supported.
A few very early AMD 486DX's may hang in some special situations. All current chips should be okay and getting a chip swap for old CPU's should not be a problem.
Linux has built-in FPU emulation if you don't have a math coprocessor.
Linux supports SMP (multiple CPUs) in all 2.x kernels. See the Linux SMP HOWTO for more information.
ULSI Math*Co series has a bug in the FSAVE and FRSTOR instructions that causes problems with all protected mode operating systems. Some older IIT and Cyrix chips may also have this problem.
There are problems with TLB flushing in UMC U5S chips in very old kernels. (1.1.x)
All memory like DRAM, EDO and SDRAM can be used with Linux. Be aware that older kernels or kernels running on a mortherboard with an older BIOS may only be able to detect 64MB of RAM. If you have this problem, when you add more than 64 Mb of memory you have to add the following line to your LILO configuration file:
So when you have 96 MB of memory this should becomeappend="mem=<number of Mb>M"
Don't use a number higher than the amount of RAM you really have. This will cause crashes.append="mem=96M"
Linux will work with all video cards in text mode, VGA cards not listed below probably will still work with mono VGA and/or standard VGA drivers.
If you're looking into buying a cheap video card to run X, keep in mind that accelerated cards (ATI Mach, ET4000/W32p, S3) are MUCH faster than unaccelerated or partially accelerated (Cirrus, WD) cards.
"32 bpp" is actually 24 bit color aligned on 32 bit boundaries. It does NOT mean the cards are capable of 32 bit color, they still display 24 bit color (16,777,216 colors). 24 bit packed pixels modes are not supported in XFree86, so cards that can do 24 bit modes to get higher resolutions in other OS's are not able to do this in X using XFree86. These cards include Mach32, Cirrus 542x, S3 801/805/868/968, ET4000, and others.
AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) support is growing fast. Most of the X-servers (both freely available and commercial versions) have more or less support for AGP.
Please note that this section has not been updated recently!
For the most recent information about cards and chipsets supported by XFree86, see the Driver Status page and the XFree86 3.3.6 card list.
The following information was last updated for XFree86 3.3.2.
ARK Logic ARK1000PV/VL, ARK2000PV/MT
ATI Mach8
ATI Mach32 (16 bpp supported for cards with RAMDAC ATI68875, AT&T20C49x, BT481 and 2Mb video ram)
ATI Mach64 (16/32 bpp supported for cards with RAMDAC ATI68860, ATI68875, CH8398, STG1702, STG1703, AT&T20C408, 3D Rage II, internal, IBM RGB514)
Chips & Technologies 64200, 64300, 65520, 65525, 65530, 65535, 65540, 65545, 65546, 65548, 65550, 65554
Cirrus Logic 5420, 542x/5430 (16 bpp), 5434 (16/32 bpp), 5436, 544x, 546x, 5480, 62x5, 754x
Diamond Viper 330
Gemini P1 (ET6000 chip)
IBM 8514/A
IBM XGA-I, XGA-II
IIT AGX-010/014/015/016 (16 bpp)
Matrox MGA2064W (Millennium)
Matrox MGA1064SG (Mystique)
Number Nine Imagine I128
Oak OTI-087
S3 732 (Trio32), 764 (Trio64), Trio64V+, 801, 805, 864, 866, 868, 86C325 (ViRGE), 86C375 (ViRGE/DX), 86C385 (ViRGE/GX), 86C988 (ViRGE/VX), 911, 924, 928, 964, 968
see Appendix A for list of supported S3 cards
SiS 86c201, 86c202, 86c205
Trident 9440, 96xx, Cyber938x
Tseng ET4000/W32/W32i/W32p, ET6000
Weitek P9000 (16/32 bpp)
Diamond Viper VLB/PCI
Orchid P9000
Western Digital WD90C24/24A/24A2/31/33
Alliance AP6422, AT24
ATI VGA Wonder series
Avance Logic AL2101/2228/2301/2302/2308/2401
Cirrus Logic 6420/6440, 7555
Compaq AVGA
DEC 21030
Genoa GVGA
MCGA (320x200)
MX MX68000/MX68010
NCR 77C22, 77C22E, 77C22E+
NVidia NV1
Oak OTI-037C, OTI-067, OTI-077
RealTek RTG3106
SGS-Thomson STG2000
Trident 8800CS, 8200LX, 8900x, 9000, 9000i, 9100B, 9200CXr, 9320LCD, 9400CXi, 9420, 9420DGi, 9430DGi
Tseng ET3000, ET4000AX
VGA (standard VGA, 4 bit, slow)
Video 7 / Headland Technologies HT216-32
Western Digital/Paradise PVGA1, WD90C00/10/11/30
Note: Xsuse has been integrated into XFree86. This section will be removed when the XFree86 section is updated.
SuSE is building a serie of X-servers based on the XFree86 code. These X servers support new video cards and are bug fix releases for XFree86 X servers. SuSE is building these X servers together with The XFree86 Project, Inc. These X servers will be in the next XFree86 version. These X servers can be found at SuSE's web site. At this moment SuSE X servers are available for the following video cards.
XSuSE Elsa GLoria X-Server
ELSA GLoria L, GLoria L/MX, Gloria S
Video cards with the Alliance Semiconductor AT3D (also AT25) Chip
Hercules Stingray 128 3D
XSuSE NVidia X-Server (PCI and AGP support, NV1 chipset and Riva128)
ASUS 3Dexplorer
Diamond Viper 330
ELSA VICTORY Erazor
STB Velocity 128
XSuSE Matrox. Support for Mystique, Millennium, Millennium II and Millennium II AGP
XSuSE Trident. Support for the 9685 (including ClearTV) and the latest Cyber chipset
XSuSE Tseng. W32, W32i ET6100 and ET6300 support.
Commercial X servers provide support for cards not supported by XFree86, and might give better performances for cards that are supported by XFree86. Contact the vendors directly or check the Commercial HOWTO for more info.
The kernel supports a graphical console on some video cards. This support was originally designed for non-x86 architectures which generally do not have text-capable video cards. It was integrated into the kernel in 2.2, and now supports various video cards.
More information can be found at linux-fbdev.org.
The following cards are supported:
Amiga builtin chipset (amifb)
ATARI builtin chipset (atafb)
ATI Rage128 (aty128fb)
ATI Mach64, RageII, RageII+, RageIIc (atyfb)
Hercules Graphics Adaptor (hgafb)
Matrox Millennium I, Millennium II, Mystique, G200 (matroxfb)
PowerMAC "platinum" (platinumfb)
S3 Savage4 (savagefb)
3Dfx Voodoo, Voodoo2, Voodoo3 (tdfxfb)
S3 Trio64 (trio64fb)
All VESA 2.0 cards (vesafb)
VGA
EGA
ARK Logic ARK1000PV/2000PV
ATI VGA Wonder
ATI Mach32
Cirrus 542x, 543x
OAK OTI-037/67/77/87
S3 (limited support)
Trident TVGA8900/9000
Tseng ET3000/ET4000/W32
Linux will work with standard IDE, MFM and RLL controllers. When using MFM/RLL controllers it is important to use ext2fs and the bad block checking options when formatting the disk.
Enhanced IDE (EIDE) interfaces are supported. With up to two IDE interfaces and up to four hard drives and/or CD-ROM drives. Linux will detect these EIDE interfaces:
CMD-640 (Support for buggy interfaces in kernel 2.2)
RZ1000 (Support for buggy interfaces in kernel 2.2)
AEC62XX
ALI M15x3
AMD Viper
CY82C693
Cyrix CS5530 MediaGX
HPT34X
HPT366
Intel PIIXn
NS87415
OPTi 82C621
Promise PDC20246/PDC20262/PDC20267
ServerWorks OSB4
SiS5513
SLC90E66
Tekram TRM290
VIA82CXXX
DTC 2278D
FGI/Holtek HT-6560B VLB (Support for secondary interface in kernel 2.2)
Triton I (82371FB) (with busmaster DMA)
Triton II (82371SB) (with busmaster DMA)
ALI M14xx
Promise DC4030
QDI QD6580
UMC 8672
ESDI controllers that emulate the ST-506 (MFM/RLL/IDE) interface will also work. The bad block checking comment also applies to these controllers.
Generic 8 bit XT controllers also work.
Starting with pre-patch-2.0.31-3 IDE/ATAPI is provided.
UMC 8672 interfaces (experimental in kernel 2.2)
Promise DC4030VL caching interface card (experimental support in kernel 2.2)
Tekram D690CD IDE PCI Cache Controller (with RAID level 1 Mirroring and caching)
ARCO Inc. DupliDisk IDE disk mirroring controller
Support for ATA, IDE, E-IDE and UDMA drive. Controllers available can be plugged into ISA and PCI slots, and directly into the IDE controller. Furthermore, 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch Bay Mount units are available that fit into the respective drive bays. More information at Arco's web site. Make sure you have at least rev 3.00 of the firmware.
Mylex RAID controllers
More information can be found here.
3ware Escalade IDE RAID controllers
3ware's 5000-series and 6000-series controllers have been supported since kernel 2.2.15. Support for the 7000-series controllers and RAID5 on the 6000-series controllers requires kernel 2.4.5 or 2.2.20 or better.
It is important to pick a SCSI controller carefully. Many cheap ISA SCSI controllers are designed to drive CD-ROM's rather than anything else. Such low-end SCSI controllers are no better than IDE. See the SCSI HOWTO and look at performance figures before buying a SCSI card.
AMI Fast Disk (VLB/EISA) (BusLogic compatible)
Adaptec AVA-1502E (ISA/VLB) (AIC-6360) (AHA1520)
Adaptec AVA-1505/1515 (ISA) (Adaptec AHA-152x compatible)
Adaptec AVA-1825 (VLB) (Adaptec AHA-152x compatible)
This card has a SCSI, EIDE and floppy port which all work nicely.
Adaptec AHA-1510/152x (ISA/VLB) (AIC-6260/6360)
Adaptec AHA-154x (ISA) (all models)
Adaptec AHA-174x (EISA) (in enhanced mode)
Adaptec AHA-274x/274xT (EISA) (AIC-7771). The 274xT is supported since kernel series 2.1.x (AHA2740)
Adaptec AHA-284x (VLB) (AIC-7770) (AHA2740)
Adaptec AHA-2910B (PCI) (since kernel series 2.1.x)
Adaptec AHA-2920 (PCI). Use the Future Domain driver. LILO parameters are needed when used for hard disks.
Adaptec AHA-2920C (PCI)
Adaptec AHA-2930/U/U2 (PCI)
Adaptec AHA-2940/U/W/AU/UW/U2W/U2/U2B/U2BOEM (PCI) (AIC-7861, AIC-7871, AIC-7844, AIC-7881, AIC-7884). Some of these are only supported since kernel series 2.1.x (AHA2740)
Adaptec AHA-2944D/WD/UD/UWD (PCI). Some of these are only supported since kernel series 2.1.x (AHA2740)
Adaptec AHA-2950U2/U2B/U2W
Adaptec AHA-3940/U/W/UW/AUW/U2W (PCI) (AIC-7872, AIC-7882) (since 1.3.6). Some of these are only supported since kernel series 2.1.x
Adaptec AHA-3950U2B/U2D
Adaptec AHA-3985U/W/UW (PCI) (AIC-7873, AIC-7883). Some of these are only supported since kernel series 2.1.x
Adaptec PCI controllers with AIC-7850, AIC-7855, AIC-7860
Adaptec on board controllers with AIC-777x (EISA), AIC-785x, AIC-786x, AIC-787x (PCI), AIC-788x (PCI), AIC-789x, AIC-3860. AIC-786x and AIC-789x are supported since kernel series 2.1.x
AdvanSys ABP510/5150 Bus-Master (ISA)
AdvanSys ABP5140 Bus-Master (ISA) PnP
AdvanSys ABP5142 Bus-Master (ISA) PnP with floppy
AdvanSys ABP920 Bus-Master (PCI)
AdvanSys ABP930/U Bus-Master (PCI/Ultra>)
AdvanSys ABP960/U Bus-Master (PCI/ULTRA) MAC/PC
AdvanSys ABP542 Bus-Master (ISA) with floppy (single channel)
AdvanSys ABP742 Bus-Master (EISA) (single channel)
AdvanSys ABP842 Bus-Master (VL) (single channel)
AdvanSys ABP940/U Bus-Master (PCI/Ultra) (single channel)
AdvanSys ABP970/U Bus-Master (PCI/Ultra) MAC/PC (single channel)
AdvanSys ABP752 Dual Channel Bus-Master (EISA) (dual channel)
AdvanSys ABP852 Dual Channel Bus-Master (VL) (dual channel)
AdvanSys ABP950 Dual Channel Bus-Master (PCI) (dual channel)
Always IN2000
AMD AM53C974
BusLogic FlashPoint LT/DL/LW/DW (BT-930(R), BT-920, BT-932(R), BT-950(R), BT-952(R))
Compaq Smart Array 2
DPT PM2001, PM2012A (EATA-PIO)
DPT Smartcache/SmartRAID Plus,III,IV families (ISA/EISA/PCI) (EATA-DMA)
Take a look at this page for more information. Cards in these families are PM2011, PM2021, PM2041, PM3021, PM2012B, PM2022, PM2122, PM2322, PM2042, PM3122, PM3222, PM3332, PM2024, PM2124, PM2044, PM2144, PM3224, PM3334
DTC 3180/3280
DTC 329x (EISA) (Adaptec 154x compatible)
Future Domain TMC-16x0, TMC-3260 (PCI)
Future Domain TMC-8xx, TMC-950
Future Domain chips TMC-1800, TMC-18C50, TMC-18C30, TMC-36C70
ICP-Vortex PCI-SCSI Disk Array Controllers (many RAID levels supported) Patches for Linux 1.2.13 and 2.0.29 are available here. The controllers GDT6111RP, GDT6121RP, GDT6117RP, GDT6127RP, GDT6511RP, GDT6521RP, GDT6517RP, GDT6527RP, GDT6537RP and GDT6557RP are supported. You can also use pre-patch-2.0.31-4 to pre-patch-2.0.31-9.
ICP-Vortex EISA-SCSI Controllers (many RAID levels supported) Patches for Linux 1.2.13 and 2.0.29 are available here. The controllers GDT3000B, GDT3000A, GDT3010A, GDT3020A and GDT3050A are supported. You can also use pre-patch-2.0.31-4 to pre-patch-2.0.31-9.
Iomega PPA3 parallel port SCSI Host Bus Adapter embedded in ZIP drive
Initio Corp. INI-9090U INI-9100, INI-9100W/A/UW, INI-9200U/UW, INI-9400U/UW, INI-9520U/UW, INI-A100U2W
Initio Corp. INIC-950
Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 SCSI (ISA)
Mylex (formerly BusLogic) W Series (PCI) (BT-948, BT-958, BT-958D)
Mylex (formerly BusLogic) C Series (ISA/EISA/VLB/PCI) (BT-946C, BT-956C, BT-956CD, BT-445, BT-747C, BT-757C, BT-757CD, BT-545C, BT-540CF)
Mylex (formerly Buslogic) S Series (ISA/EISA/VLB) (BT-445S, BT-747S, BT-747D, BT-757S, BT-757D, BT-545S, BT-542D, BT-742A, BT-542B)
Mylex (formerly BusLogic) A Series (ISA/EISA) (BT-742A, BT-542B)
NCR 5380 generic cards
NCR 53C400 (Trantor T130B) (use generic NCR 5380 SCSI support)
NCR 53C406a (Acculogic ISApport / Media Vision Premium 3D SCSI)
NCR chips 53C7x0 (the 53C710 is only supported in PCI variant)
NCR chips 53C810(A), 53C815, 53C820, 53C825(A), 53C860, 53C875, 53C895 (53C895 supported 'on paper')
Qlogic / Control Concepts SCSI/IDE (FAS408) (ISA/VLB)
Qlogic FASXXX/FASXX family of chips (ISA/VLB)
QLogic IQ-PCI, IQ-PCI-10, IQ-PCI-D (PCI) (ISP1020 chip)
Quantum ISA-200S, ISA-250MG
Seagate ST-01/ST-02 (ISA)
SIIG Ultrawide SCSI Pro (Initio chipset). Drivers and kernel patch to be found here.
SoundBlaster 16 SCSI-2 (Adaptec 152x compatible) (ISA)
Tekram DC-390, DC-390W/U/F
Trantor T128/T128F/T228 (ISA)
UltraStor 14F (ISA), 24F (EISA), 34F (VLB)
Western Digital WD7000 SCSI
Adaptec AHA 2940UW Pro
Adaptec AAA-13x RAID Adapters
Adaptec AAA-113x Raid Port Cards
Adaptec AIC-7810
NCR chip 53C710 (ISA) (old obsolete chip, but still used in some Compaq models)
Non Adaptec compatible DTC boards (327x, 328x)
Any standard serial/parallel/joystick/combo cards. Linux supports 8250, 16450, 16550, and 16550A UART's. Cards that support non-standard IRQ's (IRQ > 9) can be used.
See National Semiconductor's ``Application Note AN-493'' by Martin S. Michael. Section 5.0 describes in detail the differences between the NS16550 and NS16550A. Briefly, the NS16550 had bugs in the FIFO circuits, but the NS16550A (and later) chips fixed those. However, there were very few NS16550's produced by National, long ago, so these should be very rare. And many of the ``16550'' parts in actual modern boards are from the many manufacturers of compatible parts, which may not use the National ``A'' suffix. Also, some multiport boards will use 16552 or 16554 or various other multiport or multifunction chips from National or other suppliers (generally in a dense package soldered to the board, not a 40 pin DIP). Mostly, don't worry about it unless you encounter a very old 40 pin DIP National ``NS16550'' (no A) chip loose or in an old board, in which case treat it as a 16450 (no FIFO) rather than a 16550A. - Zhahai Stewart < zstewart@hisys.com>
AST FourPort and clones (4 port)
Accent Async-4 (4 port)
Arnet Multiport-8 (8 port)
Bell Technologies HUB6 (6 port)
Boca BB-1004, 1008 (4, 8 port) - no DTR, DSR, and CD
Boca BB-2016 (16 port)
Boca IO/AT66 (6 port)
Boca IO 2by4 (4 serial / 2 parallel, uses 5 IRQ's)
Computone ValuePort (4, 6, 8 port) (AST FourPort compatible)
DigiBoard PC/X, PC/Xem, PCI/Xem, EISA/Xem, PCI/Xr (4, 8, 16 port)
Comtrol Hostess 550 (4, 8 port)
PC-COMM 4-port (4 port)
SIIG I/O Expander 4S (4 port, uses 4 IRQ's)
STB 4-COM (4 port)
Twincom ACI/550
Usenet Serial Board II (4 port)
Non-intelligent cards usually come in two varieties, one using standard com port addresses and use 4 IRQ's, and another that's AST FourPort compatible and uses a selectable block of addresses and a single IRQ. (Addresses and IRQ's are set using setserial.) If you're getting one of these cards, be sure to check which standard it conforms to, prices are no indication.
Computone IntelliPort II (4/8/16 port)
Cyclades Cyclom-Y (RISC-based, 8-32 ports) (ISA/PCI)
Cyclades-Z (high-end, 16-64 ports) (PCI)
DigiBoard PC/Xe (ISA), PC/Xi (EISA) and PC/Xeve
Equinox SST Intelligent serial I/O cards
Hayes ESP 1, 2 and 8 port versions Included in kernel since 2.1.15. The driver for kernel versions 2.0.x can be found at (driver)
Stallion EasyIO (ISA) / EasyConnection 8/32 (ISA/MCA) / EasyConnection 8/64 (PCI) For DIP switch settings and configuration files check (driver)
Stallion EasyConnection 8/64 (ISA/EISA) / ONboard (ISA/EISA/MCA) / Brumby (ISA) The latest driver can be found at (driver)
Comtrol RocketPort (8/16/32 port)
(driver) (kernels 1.2.x). A driver for kernels 2.x can be found at (driver)
DigiBoard COM/Xi Contact Simon Park (si@wimpol.demon.co.uk) or Mark Hatle (fray@krypton.mankato.msus.edu). NOTE: both email addresses seem not to exist any longer.
Moxa C102, C104, C168, C218 (8 port), C320 (8/16/24/32 expandable) and C320T
RISCom/8
Specialix SIO/XIO (modular, 4 to 32 ports)
Specialix IO8+ Contact
Ethernet adapters vary greatly in performance. In general the newer the design the better. Some very old cards like the 3Com 3c501 are only useful because they can be found in junk heaps for $5 a time. Be careful with clones, not all are good clones and bad clones often cause erratic lockups under Linux. Read the Ethernet HOWTO for detailed descriptions of various cards.
For ethernet cards with the DECchip DC21x4x family the "Tulip" driver is available. More information on this driver can be found at Donald Becker's site.
3Com 3c501 - "avoid like the plague" (3c501 driver)
3Com 3c503 (3c503 driver), 3c505 (3c505 driver), 3c507 (3c507 driver), 3c509/3c509B (ISA) / 3c579 (EISA)
3Com Etherlink III Vortex Ethercards (3c590, 3c592, 3c595, 3c597) (PCI), 3Com Etherlink XL Boomerang (3c900, 3c905) (PCI) and Cyclone (3c905B, 3c980) Ethercards (3c59x driver) and 3Com Fast EtherLink Ethercard (3c515) (ISA) (3c515 driver) Newer versions of this drivers are available at Donald Becker's site Avoid the 3c900 card when possible as the driver is not functioning well for this card.
3Com 3ccfe575 Cyclone Cardbus (3c59x driver)
3Com 3c575 series Cardbus (3c59x driver) (ALL PCMCIA ??)
AMD LANCE (79C960) / PCnet-ISA/PCI (AT1500, HP J2405A, NE1500/NE2100)
AT&T GIS WaveLAN
Allied Telesis AT1700
Allied Telesis LA100PCI-T
Allied Telesyn AT2400T/BT ("ne" module)
Ansel Communications AC3200 (EISA)
Apricot Xen-II / 82596
Cabletron E21xx
Cogent EM110
Crystal Lan CS8920, Cs8900 (driver)
Danpex EN-9400
DEC DE425 (EISA) / DE434/DE435 (PCI) / DE450/DE500 (DE4x5 driver)
DEC DE450/DE500-XA (dc21x4x) (Tulip driver)
DEC DEPCA and EtherWORKS
DEC EtherWORKS 3 (DE203, DE204, DE205)
DEC QSilver's (Tulip driver)
Digi International RightSwitch
DLink DE-220P, DE-528CT, DE-530+, DFE-500TX, DFE-530TX
Fujitsu FMV-181/182/183/184
HP PCLAN (27245 and 27xxx series)
HP PCLAN PLUS (27247B and 27252A)
HP 10/100VG PCLAN (J2577, J2573, 27248B, J2585) (ISA/EISA/PCI) More information at Donald Becker's site
ICL EtherTeam 16i / 32 (EISA)
Intel EtherExpress
Intel EtherExpress Pro
KTI ET16/P-D2, ET16/P-DC ISA (work jumperless and with hardware-configuration options)
Macromate MN-220P (PnP or NE2000 mode)
NCR WaveLAN
NE2000/NE1000 (be careful with clones)
Netgear FA-310TX (Tulip chip)
New Media Ethernet
PureData PDUC8028, PDI8023
SEEQ 8005
SMC Ultra / EtherEZ (ISA)
SMC 9000 series
SMC PCI EtherPower 10/100 (Tulip driver)
SMC EtherPower II (epic100.c driver)
Sun LANCE adapters (kernel 2.2 and newer)
Sun Intel adapters (kernel 2.2 and newer)
Schneider & Koch G16
Western Digital WD80x3
Zenith Z-Note / IBM ThinkPad 300 built-in adapter
Znyx 312 etherarray (Tulip driver)
ISDN4Linux tools are available from here.
3Com Sonix Arpeggio (driver)
ASUSCOM Network Inc. ISDNLink 128K PC adapter (HiSax)
AVM A1 (HiSax)
AVM B1 (avmb1)
Combinet EVERYWARE 1000 ISDN (driver)
Compaq ISDN S0 (ISA) (HiSax)
Creatix PnP S0 (HiSax)
Dr. Neuhaus Niccy PnP/PCI (HiSax)
Dynalink IS64PH (HiSax)
Eicon.Diehl Diva 2.0 (ISA/PCI) (S0 and U interface, no PRO version) (HiSax)
Eicon.Diehl Diva Piccola (HiSax)
Elsa Microlink PCC-16, PCF, PCF-Pro, PCC-8 (HiSax)
ELSA QuickStep 1000/1000PCI/3000 (HiSax)
HFC-2BS0 based cards (HiSax)
IBM Active 2000 (ISA) (act2000)
ICN ISDN cards (icn)
Ith Kommunikationstechnik GmbH MIC 16 (ISA) (HiSax)
ITK ix1-micro Rev.2 (HiSax)
Octal PCBIT (pcbit)
Sedlbauer Speed Card (HiSax)
Teles SO-8/SO-16.0/SO-16.3/SO-16.3c/SO-16.4 and compatible ones (HiSax)
Traverse Technologie NETjet PCI S0 (HiSax)
USR Sportster internal TA (HiSax)
| Manufacturer | Model name | Bus | Driver | Notes |
| Cyclades | PC300/RSV | PCI | 1 or 2 ports, RS-232 and V.35 | |
| Cyclades | PC300/X21 | PCI | 1 or 2 ports, X.21 | |
| Cyclades | PC300/TE | PCI | 1 or 2 ports, T1 and E1 | |
| Emerging Technologies Inc. | ET/5025 | ISA | 1 port, 8-bit | |
| Emerging Technologies Inc. | ET/5025-16 | ISA | 1 port, 16-bit | |
| Emerging Technologies Inc. | ET/5025-25 | ISA | 2 port, 16-bit | |
| Emerging Technologies Inc. | ET/5025pq | PCI | 4 port | |
| Sangoma | S514/FT1 | PCI | Wanpipe | 1.54Mbps (T1). The card can be configured to support from 64kbps to 1.54Mbps. |
| Sangoma | S5141 | PCI | Wanpipe | RS232/V.35/X.21on dual ports. Main port is 4Mpbs, secondary is 512kbps. |
| Sangoma | S5142 | PCI | Wanpipe | RS232/V.35/X.21on four ports. Main ports are 4Mpbs, secondaries are 512kbps. Functionally identical to two separate S5141 cards. |
| Sangoma | S508/FT1 | ISA | Wanpipe | 1.54Mbps (T1). The card can be configured to support from 64kbps to 1.54Mbps. |
| Sangoma | S508 | ISA | Wanpipe | 4Mbps, RS232/V.35/X.21 |
| Sangoma | S503 | ISA | Wanpipe | 64kbps, RS232/V.35/X.21 |
| Sangoma | S502 | ISA | Wanpipe | obsolete card |
For more information on Linux and use of the parallel port, go to the Linux Parallel Port Home Page ( alternate location). Check Appendix C for a complete list of supported parallel port devices (excluding printers).
SLIP/CSLIP/PPP (serial port)
EQL (serial IP load balancing)
PLIP (parallel port) - using ``LapLink cable'' or bi-directional cable
Take a look at the token ring web site here.
3Com 3C619/B/C Tokenlink 16/4 (ibmtr)
3Com 3C319 Velocity ISA (ibmtr)
IBM PCI token ring adapter
IBM Wake on Lan TR adapter
IBM 16/4 TR PCI Adapter 2, Adapter 2 Wake on Lan, Adapter 2 Wake on Lan Special
IBM High Speedd 100/16/4 token ring
IBM ISA 16/4, MCA 16/4 (ibmtr)
IBM Tropic chipset cards
Olicom RapidFire 3139, 3140, 3141, 3540 (more info)
Olicom OC-3136, OC-3137, OC-3138, OC-3129 (more info)
Madge Smart 100/16/4 PCI, 16/4 PCI Mk3, 16/4 PCI Mk2 (more info)
Madge Presto PCI, 16/4 CardBus (more info)
Syskonnect TR4/16(+) SK-4190 ISA, SK-4590 PCI, SK-4591 PCI (sktr)
Racal-Interlan NI5210 (i82586 Ethernet chip). Improved support in kernel 2.2 and newer
Racal-Interlan NI6510 (am7990 lance chip). Starting with kernel 1.3.66 more than 16Mb Ram is supported.
Racal-Interlan PCI card (AMD PC net chip 97c970)??
3Com 3C359 Velocity XL PCI
3Com 3C339 Velocity PCI
IBM PCI LANStreamer, MCA LANStreamer token ring
Intel TokenExpress PRO, TokenExpress 16/4
Sysconnect / Schneider & Koch Token Ring cards (all of them)
More information on sound drivers and sound cards can be found on Alan Cox's OSS page, ALSA, and the Linux Sound HOWTO.
4Front Technology Virtual Mixer (includes SoftOSS)
4Front Technology Virtual Synth (SoftOSS)
6850 UART MIDI
A-Plus Sound of Music (OPL3-SA)
A-Trend Harmony 3Ds751 (PCI)
AcerMagic S23
Adlib FM synthesizer card
Adlib MSC 16 PnP (CS4235)
AMD Interwave reference card
ARC Probook
Audio Excell DSP16
Avance Logic ALS-007 chip based cards. Code for this chip is integrated in the Sound Blaster 16 driver. Isapnptools should be used for configuration.
AW32 Pro (R2.2-W2)
AW35 (CS4237)
AW37 Pro (CS4235)
Aztech Sound Galaxy NX Pro, NX Pro 16, WaveRider 32+
Aztech Washington
BTC Mozart Sound System
BTC-1831 Sound Card (Opti 1688)
Bravo Sound Card (Opti 82C930)
Bull PowerPc builtin audio
CDR4235-6/-8
CS32-3DI
Compaq Deskpro XL integrated Business Audio
Creative EMU8000 add on (PnP)
Creative Phone Blaster 28.8/33.6
Creative Sound Blaster 1.0 to 2.0
Creative Sound Blaster Pro
Creative Sound Blaster 16
Creative Sound Blaster 16 ASP
Creative Sound Blaster 16 PnP (type-1 up to type-10)
Creative Sound Blaster 16 Vibra
Creative Sound Blaster 2.x
Creative Sound Blaster 32/AWE
Creative Sound Blaster 32/AWE PnP (type-1 up to type-10)
Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 (type-1 up to type-7)
Creative Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold (type-1 and type-2)
Creative Sound Blaster PCI64/128
Creative Sound Blaster AWE64/Gold and 16/32/AWE PnP cards need to be activated using isapnptools
Creative ViBRA16C/CL/S (type-1 and type-2) PnP
Creative ViBRA16X PnP (half duplex only)
CrystaLake Crystal Clear Series 100
Crystal Audio (CS4235)
Crystal CRD4236B-1E
Crystal CRD4237B-5/-8
Crystal CSC0B35 (CS4236B)
Crystal CX4237B-SIDE
Crystal Onboard PnP Audio (CS4235)
Dell Latidude builtin audio
Diamond Crystal MM PC/104
Digital AXP builtin audio
ECHO-PSS cards (Orchid SoundWave32, Cardinal DSP16)
ESS 1868, 1869 (type-1 and type-2), 1878, 1879, 1968 PnP AudioDrive
Ensoniq AudioPCI (ES1371)
Ensoniq AudioPCI / SoundBlaster PCI (ES1370)
Ensoniq Soundscape Elite
Ensoniq Soundscape PnP (model 1 and 2)
Ensoniq Soundscape S-2000
Ensoniq Soundscape VIVO, VIVO90
Ensoniq ActionNote 880 C/CX
Gallant's sound card (SC-6000 and SC-66000 based)
Generic AD1815 based soundcard (PnP)
Generic CMI8330 based soundcard (PnP)
Generic Crystal CS4232 based soundcard or motherboard (non PnP)
Generic Crystal CS4232 by Acer (PnP mode)
Generic Crystal CS4232 type-1 up to type-3 (PnP mode)
Generic Crystal CS4235 type-1
Generic Crystal CS4236 (type-1 up to type-3)
Generic Crystal CS4236 based soundcard or motherboard (non PnP)
Generic Crystal CS4236A (type-1 and type-2), CS4236B
Generic Crystal CS4237 based soundcard or motherboard (non PnP)
Generic Crystal CS4237B (type-1 and type-2)
Generic Crystal CS4238 based soundcard or motherboard (non PnP)
Generic ESS ES688, ES1688, ES1788, ES1868, ES1869, ES1887, ES1888 based soundcard or motherboard
Generic Jazz16 based soundcard
Generic MAD16 (OPTi 82C928), MAD16 Pro, MAD16 Pro (duplex) (OPTi 82C929)
Generic Mozart soundcard (OAK OTI-601 chip)
Generic OPTi 82C924, 82C925 based sound card (PnP)
Generic OPTi 82C924 soundcard (non PnP mode). Use the MSS driver and the isapnp tools
Generic OPTi 82C930
Generic OPTi 82C931 (more info)
Generic Soundscape based soundcard
Generic Windows Sound System compatible
Generic Yamaha OPL3-SA1 (YMF701) based soundcard
Generic Yamaha OPL3-SA2 (YMF711) based soundcard (type-1, type-3, type-4)
Generic Yamaha OPL3-SA3 (YMF715) based soundcard
Generic Yamaha OPL3-SAx (YMF715/YMF719) non-PnP
Gravis Ultrasound
Gravis Ultrasound Extreme
Gravis Ultrasound 16-bit sampling daughterboard
Gravis Ultrasound MAX
Gravis Ultrasound ACE
Gravis Ultrasound PnP (with RAM), PnP Pro
HP OmniBook 2100 (CS4236)
Home Studio 64 (analog audio only)
IBM Audio Feature (CS423x)
Logitech SoundMan Games (SBPro, 44kHz stereo support)
Logitech SoundMan Wave (Jazz16/OPL4)
Logitech SoundMan 16 (PAS-16 compatible)
MED3201 audio card
Maxi Sound 32 PnP (analog audio only)
Maxi Sound 64 Dynamic 3D (analog audio only)
Media Sound SW/32 (non PnP mode)
MediaTriX AudioTriX Pro, 3D XG
Media Vision Premium 3D (Jazz16)
Media Vision Pro Sonic 16 (Jazz)
Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (PAS-16)
Media Vision Pro Audio Studio 16
Media Vision Thunderboard
Microsoft Windows Sound System board (AD1848)
MiroSound PCM!-pro
MultiWave AudioWave Green 16
Music Quest MIDI connector card (MCC)
Music Quest MQX-16, MQX-16S MIDI adapter
Music Quest MQX-32, MQX-32M MIDI adapter
Music Quest PC MIDI card
NEC Harmony
Orchid SoundDrive 16EZ
Pine PT201
Primax SoundStorm FM 16, SoundStorm Wave
Pro Audio Spectrum 16, Studio 16
RME Digi32, Digi32 Pro, Digi32/8
Reveal SC300
Reveal WaveExtreme Pro (with RAM)
Roland MPU IPC-T MIDI adapter
S3 SonicVibes
Shark Mako
Sharp PC8800
Shuttle Sound System 48
Spacewalker HOT-255 PCI 3D (PCI)
TerraTec Maestro 32/96
Terratec EWS64XL (audio only)
Terratec Sound System Base 1 (AD1816)
Terratec Sound System Base 64 (AD1816)
Tomato Sound System (OPTi 82C930)
Trust Sound Expert De Luxe Wave 32
Turtle Beach Classic/Tahiti/Monterey
Turtle Beach Maui
Turtle Beach Monte Carlo 928, Monte Carlo 929
Turtle Beach Pinnacle/Fiji
Turtle Beach Tropez, Tropez Plus (audio only)
Turtle Beach Daytona (audio only)
Wearnes Classic 16
Yamaha Sound Edge SW20-PC
Zefiro Acoustics ZA2 (NOT RECOMMENDED)
Zenith Z-Player
AWE32/64 supports is started in kernel series 2.1.x (check the SoundBlaster AWE mini-HOWTO by Marcus Brinkmann for installation details)
MPU-401 MIDI Intelligent mode (don't enable blindly)
MPU IPC-T
MQX-32M
MPU-401 MIDI UART only dumb port (don't enable blindly)
Yamaha FM synthesizers (OPL2, OPL3, OPL3-SAx (since kernel series 2.1.x) and OPL4)
OSS supports all MIDI daughter cards including Wave Blaster, TB Rio and Yamaha DB50XG. The only requirement is that the "host" card is supported by OSS. Note that only the "host" card needs to be configured using soundconf. The daughter card will be automatically accessible through the MIDI of the "host" card.
4Front Tech. Waveloop loopback audio device
Acer FX-3D (AD1816 based)
AVM Apex Pro card (AD1816 based)
Aztech AZT1008, AZT2320, AZT3000
Aztech SC-16 3D (AD1816 based)
Creative Sound Blaster Vibra16x
Creative Sound Blaster Live! and Live! Value Edition Creative Labs has beta driver for this card. They work with kernels 2.0.36 and 2.2.5 (and most probably newer kernels in these series). The drivers can be downloaded under the software download area at Creative's web site.
Highscreen Sound-Boostar 32 Wave 3D (AD1816 based)
Highscreen Sound-Boostar 16 (AD1816 based)
HP Kayak (AD1816 based)
IBM MWave
Newcom SC-16 3D (AD1816 based)
PC speaker / Parallel port DAC (driver)
Rockwell WaveArtist chipset
Sonorus STUDI/O
SY-1816 (AD1816 based)
Terratec Base 1, Base 64 (AD1816 based)
Terratec EWS64S (AD1816 based)
Turtle Beach Malibu (driver)
For the AD1816 sound chip based sound cards isapnptools is needed for configuration.
A-Trend Harmony 3DS724 (PCI)
Actech PCI 388-A3D q
Adaptec AME-1570
Aureal Vortex (PCI)
Cardinal DSP 16
Contributed lowlevel drivers
Crystal CS4614 (PCI)
Cyrix MediaGX builtin audio
Diamond Monster Sound MX300
Diamond Sonic Impact
Dream 94PnP Home Studio
EON Bach SP901 (A3D)
ESS (PCI)
ESS Maestro-1 (PCI), Maestro-2 (PCI)
ESS Solo-1 (PCI)
Echo Personal Sound System
Generic ALS007, ALS100 based soundcard
Orchid NuSound 3D
Orchid SoundWave 32
Paradise DSP-16
Quicknet Internet LineJACK
Terratec XLerate (A3D)
Turtle Beach Montego
Turtle Beach TBS-2000
Videologic SonicStorm
Wearnes Beethoven ADSP-16
Western Digital Paradise DSP-16
Yamaha YMF724 (PCI)
The ASP chip on Sound Blaster 16 series is not supported. AWE32's onboard E-mu MIDI synthesizer is not supported.
Nathan Laredo < laredo@gnu.ai.mit.edu> is willing to write AWE32 drivers if you send him a complimentary card. He is also willing to write drivers for almost any hardware if you send him free samples of your hardware.
Sound Blaster 16's with DSP 4.11 and 4.12 have a hardware bug that causes hung/stuck notes when playing MIDI and digital audio at the same time. The problem can happen with either Wave Blaster daughterboards or MIDI devices attached to the MIDI port. There is no known fix.
All hard drives should work if the controller is supported.
(From the SCSI HOWTO) All direct access SCSI devices with a block size of 256, 512, or 1024 bytes should work. Other block sizes will not work (Note that this can often be fixed by changing the block and/or sector sizes using the MODE SELECT SCSI command).
Large IDE (EIDE) drives work fine with newer kernels. The boot partition must lie in the first 1024 cylinders due to PC BIOS limitations.
Some Conner CFP1060S drives may have problems with Linux and ext2fs. The symptoms are inode errors during e2fsck and corrupt file systems. Conner has released a firmware upgrade to fix this problem, contact Conner at 1-800-4CONNER (US) or +44-1294-315333 (Europe). Have the microcode version (found on the drive label, 9WA1.6x) handy when you call.
Many Maxtor and Western Digital IDE drives are reported to not happily co-exist on the same IDE cable with the other manufacturers drive. Usually one of the drives will fail during operation. Solution is to put them on different IDE cables.
Certain Micropolis drives have problems with Adaptec and BusLogic cards, contact the drive manufacturers for firmware upgrades if you suspect problems.
Multiple device driver (RAID-0, RAID-1) (driver)
The following hard drives are mentioned as not supported by Linux. Read the bug report available.
NEC D3817, D3825, D3827, D3847 "These drives are slightly non-SCSI-2 compliant in the values reported in Mode Sense Page 3. In Mode Sense Page 3 all NEC D38x7 drives report their sector size as zero. The NEC drives are the first brand of drive we have ever encountered that reported the sector size as zero. Unfortunately, that field in Mode Sense Page 3 is not modifiable and there is no way to update the firmware on the D38x7 drives to correct this problem." Problems are mentioned for D3825 and D3827 (both revision 0407). Revision 0410 of these two hard drives seems to solve this problem.
SCSI tape drives (From the SCSI HOWTO) Drives using both fixed and variable length blocks smaller than the driver buffer length (set to 32k in the distribution sources) are supported. Virtually all drives should work. (Send mail if you know of any incompatible drives.)
Seagate Sidewinder 50 AIT (on ICP 6527 RAID-controller)
QIC-02 drives
Iomega Ditto internal (ftape 3.04c and newer)
QIC-117, QIC-40/80, QIC-3010/3020 (QIC-WIDE) drives Most tape drives using the floppy controller should work. Various dedicated controllers (Colorado FC-10/FC-20, Mountain Mach-2, Iomega Tape Controller II) are also supported here
ATAPI tape drives For these an alpha driver (ide-tape.c) is available in the kernel. ATAPI tape drives supported are
Seagate TapeStor 8000
Conner CTMA 4000 IDE ATAPI Streaming tape drive
Emerald and Tecmar QIC-02 tape controller cards - Chris Ulrich < insom@math.ucr.edu >
Drives that connect to the parallel port (eg: Colorado Trakker)
Some high speed tape controllers (Colorado TC-15)
Irwin AX250L/Accutrak 250 (not QIC-80)
IBM Internal Tape Backup Unit (not QIC-80)
COREtape Light
For more information on CD-ROM drives check the CDROM-HOWTO.
Common CD-ROM drives
SCSI CD-ROM drives (From the CD-ROM HOWTO) Any SCSI CD-ROM drive with a block size of 512 or 2048 bytes should work under Linux; this includes the vast majority of CD-ROM drives on the market.
EIDE (ATAPI) CD-ROM drives (IDECD) Almost all double, quad and six speed drives are supported, including
Mitsumi FX400
Nec-260
Sony 55E
Proprietary CD-ROM drives
Aztech CDA268-01A, Orchid CDS-3110, Okano/Wearnes CDD-110, Conrad TXC, CyCDROM CR520ie/CR540ie/CR940ie (AZTCD)
Creative Labs CD-200(F) (SBPCD)
Funai E2550UA/MK4015 (SBPCD)
GoldStar R420 (GSCD)
IBM External ISA (SBPCD)
Kotobuki (SBPCD)
Lasermate CR328A (OPTCD)
LMS Philips CM 206 (CM206)
Longshine LCS-7260 (SBPCD)
Matsushita/Panasonic CR-521/522/523/562/563 (SBPCD)
MicroSolutions Backpack parallel portdrive (BPCD)
Mitsumi CR DC LU05S (MCD/MCDX)
Mitsumi FX001D/F (MCD/MCDX)
Optics Storage Dolphin 8000AT (OPTCD)
Sanyo CDR-H94A (SJCD)
Sony CDU31A/CDU33A (CDU31A)
Sony CDU-510/CDU-515 (SOMYCD535)
Sony CDU-535/CDU-531 (SONYCD535)
Teac CD-55A SuperQuad (SBPCD)
All CD-ROM drives should work similarly for reading data. There are various compatibility problems with audio CD playing utilities. (Especially with newer low-end NEC drives.) Some alpha drivers may not have audio support yet.
Early (single speed) NEC CD-ROM drives may have trouble with currently available SCSI controllers.
PhotoCD (XA) is supported. The hpcdtoppm program by Hadmut Danisch converts PhotoCD files to the portable pixmap format. The program can be obtained from here or as part of the PBM utilities.
Also, reading video CD is supported in kernel series 2.1.3x and later. A patch is available for kernel 2.0.30.
Finally, most IDE CD-ROM Changers are supported.
Many CD-Writers are supported by Linux now. For an up to date list of CD-Writers supported check the CD-Writing HOWTO, check here or check here. Cdwrite here and cdrecord here can be used for writing CD's. The X-CD-Roast package for Linux is a graphical front-end for using CD writers. The package can be found at here.
Grundig CDR 100 IPW
HP CD-Writer+ 7100
HP SureStore 4020i
HP SureStore 6020es/i
JVC XR-W2010
Kodak PCD 225
Mitsubishi CDRW-226
Mitsumi CR-2600TE
Olympus CDS 620E
Philips CDD-521/10,522,2000,2600,3610
Pinnacle Micro RCD-5020/5040
Plextor CDR PX-24CS
Ricoh MP 1420C
Ricoh MP 6200S/6201S
Sanyo CRD-R24S
Smart and Friendly Internal 2006 Plus 2.05
Sony CDU 920S/924/926S
Taiyo Yuden EW-50
TEAC CD-R50S
WPI(Wearnes) CDR-632P
WPI(Wearnes) CDRW-622
Yamaha CDR-100
Yamaha CDR-200/200t/200tx
Yamaha CDR-400t/400tx
All SCSI drives should work if the controller is supported, including optical (MO), WORM, floptical, Bernoulli, Zip, Jaz, SyQuest, PD, and others.
Panasonic MO (combines a CD-ROM drive and an optical removable disk). You have to set a switch when configuring the kernel to get both part work at the same time.
Parallel port Zip drives here
Parallel port Avatar Shark-250 here
Removable drives work like hard disks and floppies, just fdisk / mkfs and mount the disks. Linux provides drive locking if your drives support it. mtools can also be used if the disks are in MS-DOS format.
CD-R drives require special software to work. Read the CD-R Mini-HOWTO.
Linux supports both 512 and 1024 bytes/sector disks. Starting with kernel 2.1.32 Linux also supports 2048 bytes/sector. A patch to kernel 2.0.30 is available at here.
The 2048 bytes/sector support is needed for
Fujitsu magneto-optical disk drives M2513
Starting with pre-patch-2.0.31-3 IDE/ATAPI internal Zip drives, flopticals and PD's are supported.
LS-120 floptical
PD-CD
Microsoft serial mouse
Mouse Systems serial mouse
Logitech Mouseman serial mouse
Logitech serial mouse
ATI XL Inport busmouse
C&T 82C710 (QuickPort) (Toshiba, TI Travelmate)
Microsoft busmouse
Logitech busmouse
PS/2 (auxiliary device) mouse
Touchpad devices like Alps Glidepoint also work, so long they're compatible with another mouse protocol.
Newer Logitech mice (except the Mouseman) use the Microsoft protocol and all three buttons do work. Eventhough Microsoft's mice have only two buttons, the protocol allows three buttons.
The mouse port on the ATI Graphics Ultra and Ultra Pro use the Logitech busmouse protocol. (See the Busmouse HOWTO for details.)
All external modems connected via a RS-232 serial port should work. This includes external ISDN adapters, although some of the extended features of external ISDN adapaters (such as multilink) may or may not work.
Internal modems are another story, however. There are many so-called "winmodems" available now. In fact, it seems that most PCI modems are winmodems. Some of them do have drivers for Linux now, but many of the drivers are often binary-only. (See the note on binary-only drivers.) See Linmodems.org for more information on Linux-supported winmodems.
Note that there are external USB winmodems on the market now, so be very careful when shopping for external modems.
Furthermore, many flash upgradable modems only have flash programs for Win95/NT. These modems cannot be upgraded under Linux.
A small number of modems come with DOS software that downloads the control program at runtime. These can normally be used by loading the program under DOS and doing a warm boot. Such modems are probably best avoided as you won't be able to use them with non PC hardware in the future.
Most 16-bit PCMCIA modems should work with the PCMCIA drivers. CardBus modems are usually winmodems much like PCI modems. Your best bet for now is to find a card that lists compatibility with DOS and Windows 3.1.
All that said, if a modem is known to have a real UART (or hardware UART emulation), whether it is ISA, PCMCIA, etc., it should work under Linux.
Fax modems need appropriated fax software to operate. Also be sure that the fax part of the modem supports Class 2 or Class 2.0. It seems to be generally true for any fax software on unix that support for Class 1.0 is not available.
An exception to this is the Linux efax program which supports both Class 1 and Class 2 fax modems. In some cases there can be a few (minor) technical problems with Class 1 modems. If you have a choice it is recommend to get a Class 2 modem.
See Appendix E Linux Incompatible Hardware for specific cards known not to work with Linux.
The following are other good resources for finding Linux-compatible modems:
Other useful documents include the following:
Below is a very incomplete list of modems currently known to work under Linux.
| Manufacturer | Model name | Chipset | Bus | Driver | Notes |
| Actiontec | PCI56012-01CW | PCI | |||
| Multitech | MultiModem MT5634ZPX-PCI | PCI | |||
| IBM | 33L4618 | PCI | |||
| Topic | FM-56PCI-TP | PCI | |||
| 3Com | 3CP5610 | PCI | |||
| 3Com | 3CP5613 Internet Gaming Modem | PCI |