Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
If it's true, though, that Skylake motherboards have a different method of talking to USB devices, wouldn't that mean that older distributions of any o/s couldn't talk to USB devices on such a motherboard? That would mean no keyboard, no mouse, etc. Kind of hard to upgrade anything if you can't communicate with the o/s.
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That might very well be true (or things of that general ilk), yes.
As I said, any particular drivers that might be needed, would be distributed anyway in a kernel update. Linux only has one kernel, the kernel for older distros is an old version of the current kernel.
Any kernel update that includes new drivers critical to basic use of common hardware is most likely going to receive special treatment, even on distros that are usually cautious about upgrades (because "stability").
So for newer hardware, all you need is the latest installation media, and yes, most distros do periodically re-release installation media with the latest stable updates. Or, worst comes to worst, it is trivial to roll your own.
Unlike slipstreamed Windows media (which I believe relies on unofficial if proven tools), linux distros publicly release the same tools they use to build the media, and provide official guides for remastering the ISOs. (This is already commonly done by people to customize the default software list.)