Question about linux

[Air tree]

Well i have a quick question about linux and it is.

 

If  Amd or Nvidia Released a  performance optimization patch would that affect pretty much all the versions of linux? (I'm assuming that's how linux works, It's just different versions of the same platform right?)

[ultimatemythbuster]

Well i have a quick question about linux and it is.

 

If  Amd or Nvidia Released a  performance optimization patch would that affect pretty much all the versions of linux? (I'm assuming that's how linux works, It's just different versions of the same platform right?)

It would depend on the platform.  From what I understand, an optimization for Ubuntu based distros may not work on a distro like Red Hat.  I welcome a correction if I'm wrong in this assumption.

[rashdanml]

Typically, yes. The Linux kernel is essentially the same for all distributions. Some distributions make modifications at the kernel level, which eventually gets added to the base kernel, which then gets re-distributed to the other distributions of Linux. 

 

A large number of distributions are based on one another. Ubuntu is based on Debian. Many more OS's are based on Ubuntu and Debian combined. Debian is essentially the father of most distributions of Linux; there are a handful of others that also spawned distributions (Red Hat spawned many free equivalents like CentOS, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Oracle Linux, etc).

 

The short version, compatibility shouldn't be a major problem. In some cases, only minor modifications are needed to get it working right. 

 

e: However, if the drivers were open-source, the source can then be compiled on any distribution with the right compilers (pretty much all of them come with gcc and compilers for just about any programming language). 

[lutzee]

Typically, yes. The Linux kernel is essentially the same for all distributions. Some distributions make modifications at the kernel level, which eventually gets added to the base kernel, which then gets re-distributed to the other distributions of Linux. 

 

A large number of distributions are based on one another. Ubuntu is based on Debian. Many more OS's are based on Ubuntu and Debian combined. Debian is essentially the father of most distributions of Linux; there are a handful of others that also spawned distributions (Red Hat spawned many free equivalents like CentOS, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Oracle Linux, etc).

 

The short version, compatibility shouldn't be a major problem. In some cases, only minor modifications are needed to get it working right. 

 

e: However, if the drivers were open-source, the source can then be compiled on any distribution with the right compilers (pretty much all of them come with gcc and compilers for just about any programming language). 

 

Basically this is correct, however a lot of patches that distros make to the kernel often don't get integrated upstream, and the only way to have a patch be integrated in the main kernel release is to actually do a pull request against the main kernel git repo and have it pulled in, which is not easy.

 

Also there are a lot more distros than you realise.

the RedHat tree is just as big as the debian tree, same with the Slackware tree, then theres a couple of smaller trees, such as arch.