Linux 5.9 kernel supports 99% of popular PCI hardware on the market

Carried out assessment of the level of hardware support by the Linux kernel 5.9. The average support for PCI devices across all categories (Ethernet, WiFi, graphics cards, audio, etc.) was 99.3%. A repository was created specifically for the study. DevicePopulation, which represents the population of PCI devices on users' computers. The status of device support in the latest Linux kernel can be obtained using the project LKDDb.

To estimate hardware support in an operating system, it would seem that one can simply calculate the ratio of the number of supported devices to the total number of devices on the market. But, firstly, both values ​​are not even approximately known, and, secondly, not all devices are equally popular. There are widely used devices that need support, and there are rare ones that have very few users. Accounting for the population of PCI devices on users' computers made it possible to understand which device support is more important and which is less important.

To get final statistics all instances of supported devices were summed and divided by the total number of supported and unsupported. To help organize the search for Linux-compatible configurations, users are invited to add samples of their computers in the database.

PCI class
Devices
Support

Card reader
9433
Present in several = 100%

Communication controller
39144
Present in several = 98.23%

dma controller
115
Present in several = 99.13%

dvb card
85
Present in several = 100%

Encryption controller
8169
Present in several = 88.64%

firewire controller
7978
Present in several = 99.97%

flash-memory
469
Present in several = 37.95%

Graphics card
89190
Present in several = 98.06%

input device controller
262
Present in several = 100%

ipmi smic interface
155
Present in several = 100%

Modem
307
Present in several = 89.58%

Multimedia controller
2194
Present in several = 88.56%

net/ethernet
55774
Present in several = 99.92%

net/other
10929
Present in several = 99.82%

net/wireless
43499
Present in several = 99.80%

Non-essential instrumenta…
5103
Present in several = 99.98%

sd host controller
10370
Present in several = 100%

serial bus controller
12251
Present in several = 99.80%

serial controller
4901
Present in several = 99.84%

signal processing controller
37989
Present in several = 97.22%

smbus
62763
Present in several = 99.92%

Sound
103406
Present in several = 99.95%

TV card
902
Present in several = 100%

usb controller
215098
Present in several = 100%

Source: opennet.ru