Video card support Vs Kernel/Distro ?

[TheDead]

I implore thee and asketh for a parcel of your Wisdom O Great Forum Dwellers!

I know this can be a big question but it there a way to know what video card is officially supported by an Linux distro / Kernel ?
Not the driver list but the supported hardware list like :
Kernel 4.x.x supports these cards :
nVidia GeForce 8600 (or even by chipset, nvidia nv530, etc.)
nVidia GeForce 8800 ..
Intel GMA 4000...and so on.

I usually manage to get everything working by forcing drivers, etc. But sometimes some features like some OpenGL 3D commands are not supported.
Or maybe the other way around, Kernel 4.x.x needs OpenGL 2.0 support to work properly and blah blah.

Maybe there's a command line to "ask" a driver/program for which Kernel it was originally developped? Even better would be before installing it.

Kirk out!

[Valtam]

Personally, the best combo you can use is the latest kernel with the latest nVidia driver from their site (the .run file). Requires intermediate->advanced command line knowledge to install and config but once it's done, you can run it forever. That's how I roll. Then you don't have to worry about updates breaking your system, ever.

[TheDead]

Thanks Jerry, I'll try that for "recent" nVidia video cards. I should be able to manage nVidia since when dealing with ATI cards I sometimes have to manually install an ATI "Legacy" driver which is sometimes a pain, but then, no OpenGL, etc.

The thing is I build used systems for low-income households and the video card selection is what people give us.
These vary greatly in age and brand but I try to keep it in the PCI-Express era and leave AGP in it's peacefull tomb. (i.e. We sell the untested AGP cards for 2$ )

With the systems, even the latest nVidia (recommended) drivers from the driver installer are sometimes too "new" for older cards and give a black screen on reboot and have to roll-back in recovery to the other recommended drivers.

Oh, and most of the time I have to stay in Linux Lite 3.x for now on these because 4.0 was a little "young" for "grand-pa" hardware.
I'll try again when 4.4 comes out, maybe with backports, etc. (?)
I even sometime use 2.x but just for computer not even powerfull enough to get Youtube working correctly in 240p, LOL.

Thats a lot of blah blah but since I won't ever put Windows on these machines I just want to get the most out of them on Linux.
Thinking about it I broke the OS a few times when updating Kernels, so per-kernel is better then per-distro.
Having a list of supported video cards/chips per kernel would be a great help when rebuilding these old geezer-computers.

If nothing of the sort is possible I'll start building my own list I guess. I like to do Calc tables, hehe!

Cheers!

[Valtam]

Look in the Help Manual, Hardware. There is a link there for nVidia legacy/new cards.

Sent from my Mobile phone using Tapatalk