Red Hat hopes project will ease Linux drivers

Red Hat has begun a project to make drivers, the software modules that enable computers to use devices such as hard drives or network cards, less of a thorny problem in Linux.

The leading Linux company ships many drivers with its Red Hat Enterprise Linux product, making them relatively easy to use and update, but things get tricky for third-party suppliers, said Chief Technology Officer Brian Stevens in an interview. Red Hat hopes to change that.

"We're trying to make the installation and provision more friendly to drivers that aren't developed by Red Hat...whether proprietary or open-source," Stevens said. "It's crazy. There has to be better way of managing drivers."

Red Hat wants to provide metadata that describes which versions of the Linux kernel work with which drivers. The driver installation process would then download the appropriate driver based on the computer's configuration, he said.

Drivers also are a tricky political as well as technical issue. Opinions differ on whether it's permissible to plug proprietary drivers into the open-source Linux kernel. Red Hat hasn't issued a legal opinion on the matter, but doesn't like proprietary drivers for business reasons, Stevens said.