[closed] where could I find the information of all installed drivers.

[novice linux user]

on windows its very easy one has to go into device manager and there is the list of installed and uninstalled drivers. But I am struggling in finding this on mint cinnamon 18.3.

[Neil Edmond]

The terminal command inxi -Fxz will give all that info.

[thx-1138]

...try this for something which has a certain resemblance to Windows...

[novice linux user]

The terminal command inxi -Fxz will give all that info.

what is the semantic meaning of this command?

[jimallyn]

The terminal command inxi -Fxz will give all that info.

what is the semantic meaning of this command?

inxi is the command, -Fxz is the options to pass to the command. Open a terminal and enter man inxi for a complete list and description of the options.

[catweazel]

The terminal command inxi -Fxz will give all that info.

No it won't.

[Hoser Rob]

The terminal command inxi -Fxz will give all that info.

No it won't.

Agree, try lsmod in the terminal instead.

BTW there aren't really any device drivers in Linux as in WIndows. All drivers are kernel modules and as such run in protected mode.

[Mattyboy]

All of your drivers are contained in the Linux Kernel as such you shouldn't really need to worry about them. Basically, very simplified, when new hardware is released the required drivers are added to the Linux kernel. Sometimes really old 'legacy' hardware drivers are removed. You DO NOT necessarily need to run the latest and greatest Linux kernel and should ONLY install updated versions that are recommended in the software updater. Linux and Linux Mint knows what its doing, trust it, trust the update manager.

The only exceptions to the Linux Kernel drivers are propriety display drivers, usually from nivida or AMD and cpu microcode drivers.

You will find these in the Driver manager, note the difference between 'update manager' and 'driver manager'. Again trust Linux, trust Mint, only install these drivers from the driver manager. It will find the best version for your machine.

So there you go, you can see your installed display and cpu drivers in the driver manager and that's really all you need to 'worry about'.

[oldgranola]

? sounds a bit to fan boy. unless you are running non kernel drivers like me. The reason for doing so is when when the lm kernel options suck.

[tgwilt]

The terminal command inxi -Fxz will give all that info.

what is the semantic meaning of this command?

inxi is the command, -Fxz is the options to pass to the command. Open a terminal and enter man inxi for a complete list and description of the options.

Gotta agree with this. The thing is, most new users of Unix like operating systems aren't familiar with the wonders of the 'man' command. For a real treat, open a terminal and type 'man man'. The man pages can give you ways to use the ls command that you never knew.

In any event users, take this to heart. The 'man' command is your friend! Use it whenever you need help. Looking for a command? Try apropos or man -k. Hope I haven't gone too far astray. Didn't mean to hijack the answer.

[lmuserx4849]

...
Gotta agree with this. The thing is, most new users of Unix like operating systems aren't familiar with the wonders of the 'man' command. For a real treat, open a terminal and type 'man man'. The man pages can give you ways to use the ls command that you never knew.
...

I felt so crippled when I used mswindows that I created a bat command to emulate linux man, and many others. Also created alias's for less (more $*), ls (dir $*), cat (type $*), mv (ren $*), etc.

Code: Select all

:: Emulate Linux man command (sort of)
@setlocal
@title Manual Page
@if "%1%"=="" @goto help
%1% /?
@goto done
:help
help
:done
@endlocal

man output is directed to a pager, usually less. It is similar to Window's more, which is also available on Linux. You can also use man -H to direct the output to your web browser. They also appear online in many locations.

- http://manpages.ubuntu.com/
- https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/

To add to other responses...
Appropriate commands: lspci -v, lsmod, modinfo
I also like hwinfo, and the script inxi.

In LM, System Settings there is the Driver Manager.

KDE has kinfocenter gui. I don't know if there is something similar in Cinnamon/gnome. Although, looking around, hardinfo is a gui that comes up often.

This seems to be a popular question/answer on the Net. There's even one here: viewtopic.php?t=36240

And here:
- https://askubuntu.com/questions/146621/ ... ce-manager
- https://superuser.com/questions/292511/ ... on-utility

[novice linux user]

All of your drivers are contained in the Linux Kernel as such you shouldn't really need to worry about them. Basically, very simplified, when new hardware is released the required drivers are added to the Linux kernel. Sometimes really old 'legacy' hardware drivers are removed. You DO NOT necessarily need to run the latest and greatest Linux kernel and should ONLY install updated versions that are recommended in the software updater. Linux and Linux Mint knows what its doing, trust it, trust the update manager.

The only exceptions to the Linux Kernel drivers are propriety display drivers, usually from nivida or AMD and cpu microcode drivers.

You will find these in the Driver manager, note the difference between 'update manager' and 'driver manager'. Again trust Linux, trust Mint, only install these drivers from the driver manager. It will find the best version for your machine.

So there you go, you can see your installed display and cpu drivers in the driver manager and that's really all you need to 'worry about'.

does every distro uses the same linux kernel?

[Mattyboy]

does every distro uses the same linux kernel?

No.

There are long term support kernels known as LTS ( good idea to use these, Mint 19 uses one )
There are 'rolling' Kernels, you can consider these the "latest and greatest" but their support time is limited.

Distro's are typically built around a certain kernel series that they are designed to work with.

Mint 18 is built on 4.13
Mint 19 4.15 LTS

4.17 is out, for example, and you may need to run it if you have a cutting edge piece of hardware that needs driver support that's only in that Kernel. See its swings and roundabouts.. you install 4.17 to get your kit going but because Mint 19 wasn't built around it it may break some or all functionality in the OS. Same with graphics drivers, typically, people coming from the Windows environment think, because they've been trained that way, that they need the absolute newest version of software.. storm ahead and install it then cry because its broken, they broke it.

Always run currently supported Kernels being either 'rollling' or 'LTS' and trust the OS, it knows what its doing, its designed that way and that's why the Driver Manager and the Update manager are the only places you should be installing new software, be it display drivers or Kernels.

Distros like Ubuntu and Mint are considered 'stable' and typically will support hardware around six months after its first release. If you want a distro to support absolute cutting edge hardware from day one ( not quite but almost ) then you would probably use something like Arch but be prepared for high maintenance.

Ask your question on youtube