One long-running controversy in the open source community has to do with device drivers and whether binary modules (proprietary code provided by device manufacturers, such as Nvidia) should be allowed within the Linux kernel.

While most basic hardware support for GNU/Linux is improving constantly, wireless support remains dismal. Few manufacturers make an effort to support the operating system, or to publicize what support they have.

One of the highly debated subjects with Windows and Linux is with device support. The two have different methods of how drivers are created and implemented into the operating system.

Since the misty days of yore, the first step in learning a new programming language has been writing a program that prints "Hello, world!". In this article, we will use the same approach to learn how to write simple Linux kernel modules and device drivers. We will learn how to print "Hello, world!" from a kernel module three different ways: printk(), a /proc file, and a device in /dev.

In an historic move, Microsoft Monday submitted driver source code for inclusion in the Linux kernel under a GPLv2 license.

A software company based in Redmond, Wash. has released 20,000 lines of code under GPLv2 for three Linux device drivers. Microsoft says its first open source Linux code contribution is designed to speed the performance of the operating system when it's run in a Hyper-V virtual machine.

IBM's WebSphere RFID Information Center was certified as fully compliant with its EPCIS standard. The company also introduced support for a newly ratified reader interface open standard and reported that eight device manufacturers have implemented the Eclipse open source device model to interface their devices with the IBM Premises Server 6.0.

Open source drivers will become an imperative, rather than a choice, for device manufacturers who want to break into new markets and extend their user base

There is not an application like Windows Device Manager Ubuntu. Gnome-Device-Manager is the Ubuntu equivalent for the Windows Device Manager application. it's not installed by default. Gnome Device Manager is a front-end, or GUI, to the HAL daemon service.