Can I install extra drivers via the command prompt?
Since I can’t seem to open the Additional Drivers program? And how do I know what driver I need to install?
5 Answers 5
For 14.04 and above
Will show all the driver packages which apply to your current system. You can then
sudo ubuntu-drivers install # on modern Ubuntu, or sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall # on older versions. to install all the packages you need, or you can do:
sudo ubuntu-drivers devices to show you which devices need drivers, and their corresponding package names.
But how do you install a specific driver? Assume that sudo ubuntu-drivers list outputs fglrx and fglrx-updates . How do you install fglrx-updates ?
@landroni You use sudo ubuntu-drivers devices to get the list of packages, and then sudo apt-get install to install that specific package you want.
sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall is deprecated so you have to sudo apt install the package corresponding to the driver you want, and then probably restart your computer
@alainsanguinetti ish. the —help suggests that you can just use sudo ubuntu-drivers install (not specify which driver) and that has the same behaviour as the old autoinstall .
For 12.04 and below
The additional drivers program has a command line interface, jockey-text :
to get a list of available drivers and their status, then use
# the init lines are required only for graphics drivers sudo init 1 jockey-text --enable=DRIVER sudo init 2 where DRIVER is the one you got from the list. For example:
jockey-text --enable=firmware:b43 To install the Broadcom B43 wireless driver.
For your graphics card, you will get a choice of the proprietary driver from the manufacturer and a free alternative. You have to either restart the display server (log out and back in) or restart the system entirely (recommended).
How to install a device driver on Linux
One of the most daunting challenges for people switching from a familiar Windows or MacOS system to Linux is installing and configuring a driver. This is understandable, as Windows and MacOS have mechanisms that make this process user-friendly. For example, when you plug in a new piece of hardware, Windows automatically detects it and shows a pop-up window asking if you want to continue with the driver’s installation. You can also download a driver from the internet, then just double-click it to run a wizard or import the driver through Device Manager.
This process isn’t as easy on a Linux operating system. For one reason, Linux is an open source operating system, so there are hundreds of Linux distribution variations. This means it’s impossible to create one how-to guide that works for all Linux distros. Each Linux operating system handles the driver installation process a different way.
Second, most default Linux drivers are open source and integrated into the system, which makes installing any drivers that are not included quite complicated, even though most hardware devices can be automatically detected. Third, license policies vary among the different Linux distributions. For example, Fedora prohibits including drivers that are proprietary, legally encumbered, or that violate US laws. And Ubuntu asks users to avoid using proprietary or closed hardware.
To learn more about how Linux drivers work, I recommend reading An Introduction to Device Drivers in the book Linux Device Drivers.
Two approaches to finding drivers
1. User interfaces
If you are new to Linux and coming from the Windows or MacOS world, you’ll be glad to know that Linux offers ways to see whether a driver is available through wizard-like programs. Ubuntu offers the Additional Drivers option. Other Linux distributions provide helper programs, like Package Manager for GNOME, that you can check for available drivers.
2. Command line
What if you can’t find a driver through your nice user interface application? Or you only have access through the shell with no graphic interface whatsoever? Maybe you’ve even decided to expand your skills by using a console. You have two options:
- Use a repository
This is similar to the homebrew command in MacOS. By using yum, dnf, apt-get, etc., you’re basically adding a repository and updating the package cache.
- Download, compile, and build it yourself
This usually involves downloading a package directly from a website or using the wget command and running the configuration file and Makefile to install it. This is beyond the scope of this article, but you should be able to find online guides if you choose to go this route.
Check if a driver is already installed
Before jumping further into installing a driver in Linux, let’s look at some commands that will determine whether the driver is already available on your system.
The lspci command shows detailed information about all PCI buses and devices on the system:
Or with grep:
$ lscpci | grep SOME_DRIVER_KEYWORDFor example, you can type lspci | grep SAMSUNG if you want to know if a Samsung driver is installed.
The dmesg command shows all device drivers recognized by the kernel:
Or with grep:
$ dmesg | grep SOME_DRIVER_KEYWORDAny driver that’s recognized will show in the results.
If nothing is recognized by the dmesg or lscpi commands, try these two commands to see if the driver is at least loaded on the disk:
Tip: As with lspci or dmesg, append | grep to either command above to filter the results.
If a driver is recognized by those commands but not by lscpi or dmesg, it means the driver is on the disk but not in the kernel. In this case, load the module with the modprobe command:
$ sudo modprobe MODULE_NAMERun as this command as sudo since this module must be installed as a root user.
Add the repository and install
There are different ways to add the repository through yum, dnf, and apt-get; describing them all is beyond the scope of this article. To make it simple, this example will use apt-get, but the idea is similar for the other options.
1. Delete the existing repository, if it exists.
$ sudo apt-get purge NAME_OF_DRIVER*where NAME_OF_DRIVER is the probable name of your driver. You can also add pattern match to your regular expression to filter further.
2. Add the repository to the repolist, which should be specified in the driver guide.
$ sudo add-apt-repository REPOLIST_OF_DRIVERwhere REPOLIST_OF_DRIVER should be specified from the driver documentation (e.g., epel-list).
3. Update the repository list.
4. Install the package.
$ sudo apt-get install NAME_OF_DRIVER5. Check the installation.
Run the lscpi command (as above) to check that the driver was installed successfully.
For more information
This article was originally published on Opensource.com.