Template:3rd party drivers

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Revision as of 23:14, 13 December 2013 by Sundtek (talk | contribs) (remove the "sometimes" statements, sometimes even an asteroid crashes onto earth and hits someone, add clear pro and con statements, and yes we live in 2013 things evolve.)
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Sometimes a manufacturer forks v4l-dvb all on their own and writes a driver for their device so they can claim Linux support.

In-Kernel Drivers

Advantages:
1. You might get well support for your device
2. If the manufacturer provides open source drivers, volunteers are able to provide long term support and submit it to the Linux Kernel.

Disadvantages:
1. If the manufacturer provides binary modules, or object files you might have to recompile the 3rd party driver every time you update your local kernel version

In case a manufacturer provides open source drivers the patches can be sent to the linux-media mailinglist Linux-Media Mailing List (LMML)

Userspace Drivers

Advantages:
1. Generic over nearly all Linux versions starting from 2.6.15 on
2. No recompilation needed if you update your kernel version
3. Manufacturer might provide well support for the device you bought
4. Drivers can be profiled easily and more accurately than in kernelspace
5. If the driver crashes your system won't be affected

Disadvantages:
1. this is only meant for hackers that they won't have insight about what the manufacturer is doing, regular endusers usually won't cope with device driver sources anyway

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