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A.5. Enhancing Hardware Support

By default, Fedora attempts to automatically detect and configure support for all of the components of your computer. Fedora supports the majority of hardware in common use with the software drivers that are included with the operating system. To support other devices you may supply additional drivers during the installation process, or at a later time.

A.5.1. Adding Hardware Support with Driver Disks

The installation system can load drivers from disks, pen drives, or network servers to configure support for new devices. After the installation is complete, remove any driver disks and store them for later use.

Hardware manufacturers may supply driver disks for Fedora with the device, or provide image files to prepare the disks. To obtain the latest drivers, download the correct file from the website of the manufacturer.

[Note] Driver Disks Supplied as Zipped Files

Driver disk images may be distributed as compressed archives, or zip files. For identification, the names of zip files include the extensions .zip, or .tar.gz. To extract the contents of a zipped file with a Fedora system, choose Applications -> System Tools -> Archive Manager .

To format a disk or pen drive with an image file, use the dd utility. For example, to prepare a diskette with the image file drivers.img, enter this command in a terminal window:

 
dd if=drivers.img of=/dev/fd0

To use a driver disk in the installation process, specify the dd option at the boot: prompt:

 
linux dd

When prompted, select Yes to provide a driver disk. Choose the drive that holds the driver disk from the list on the Driver Disk Source text screen.

The installation system can also read drivers from disk images that are held on network servers. Refer to Table A.3, “Driver Disk Image Sources” for the supported sources of driver disk image files.

Image Source Option Format

Select a drive or device

dd

HTTP Server

dd= https://server.mydomain.com/directory/drivers.img

FTP Server

dd= ftp://server.mydomain.com/directory/drivers.img

NFS Server

dd= nfs:server.mydomain.com:/directory/drivers.img

Table A.3. Driver Disk Image Sources

A.5.2. Overriding Automatic Hardware Detection

For some models of device automatic hardware configuration may fail, or cause instability. In these cases, you may need to disable automatic configuration for that type of device, and take additional steps to manually configure the device after the installation process is complete.

[Tip] Check the Release Notes

Refer to the Release Notes for information on known issues with specific devices.

To override the automatic hardware detection, use one or more of the following options:

Compatibility Setting Option

Disable all hardware detection

noprobe

Disable graphics, keyboard, and mouse detection

headless

Disable automatic monitor detection (DDC)

skipddc

Disable mainboard APIC

noapic

Disable power management (ACPI)

acpi=off

Disable Direct Memory Access (DMA) for IDE drives

ide=nodma

Disable BIOS-assisted RAID

nodmraid

Disable Firewire device detection

nofirewire

Disable parallel port detection

noparport

Disable PC Card (PCMCIA) device detection

nopcmcia

Disable USB storage device detection

nousbstorage

Disable all USB device detection

nousb

Force Firewire device detection

firewire

Prompt user for ISA device configuration

isa

Table A.4. Hardware Options

[Note] Additional Screen

The isa option causes the system to display an additional text screen at the beginning of the installation process. Use this screen to configure the ISA devices on your computer.

 
 
  Published under the terms of the GNU General Public License Design by Interspire