What drivers do we need to install for Linux?

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
1

Hello Hello!
So I’m pretty new to Linux and computer hardware as a whole. One thing that comes up often is installing drivers for our hardware. Framework gives us a bundle of drivers we need for Windows, but what drivers should we be installing for Linux?

There isn’t that much info online explaining drivers and no relevant/beginner-friendly info on the forum on exactly what to install out of the box. It feels like everyone knows what it is and what to do, but no one wants to talk about it at the surface or beginner level.

Note(s): I’m running Zorin OS 16

Thank you in advance!

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Drivers are built into the kernel. You will need at least kernel 5.14 to support the Framework laptop.

I’m not too familiar with Zorin, so I don’t know how to check or how to update.

But if it all “just works”, you’re good.

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3

For Intel gpus (broadwell+) in general you’ll want:
mesa
lib32-mesa
xf86-video-intel
vulkan-intel
lib32-vulkan-intel
intel-media-driver

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4

TL;DR: in a “typical”(*) setup, most stuff works out of the box without installing anything specific

You may need some software for some niche functions, e.g. ambient light brightness tuning, fingerprint reader, or generally to play games (32 bit libraries, this sort of thing) but overall if you try out a reasonably complete live distribution you will see that pretty much everything works.

Here and there in the forums you’ll also find tips for specific tuning, e.g. detecting headsets, power management etc.

(*) by “typical” I mean a standard installation of Ubuntu / Fedora / desktop Arch etc.; if you want to install e.g. Debian stable from a 100MB image you will sweat a bit more :slight_smile:

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