A Note About Kernel Drivers

During installation of Red Hat Linux, there are some limits placed on the filesystems and other drivers supported by the kernel. However, after installation there is support for all filesystems available under Linux. At installation time the modularized kernel has support for (E)IDE devices, (including ATAPI CD-ROM drives), SCSI adapters, and network cards. Additionally, all mice, SLIP, CSLIP, PPP, PLIP, FPU emulation, console selection, ELF, SysV IPC, IP forwarding, firewalling and accounting, reverse ARP, QIC tape and parallel printers, are supported.

Please Note: Because Red Hat Linux supports installation on many different types of hardware, many drivers (including those for SCSI adapters, network cards, and many CD-ROMs) are not built into the Linux kernel used during installation; rather, they are available as modules and loaded as you need them during the installation process. If necessary, you will have the chance to specify options for these modules at the time they are loaded, and in fact these drivers will ignore any options you specify for them at the boot: prompt.

After the installation is complete you may want to rebuild a kernel that includes support for your specific hardware configuration. See the Official Red Hat Linux Reference Guide for information on building a customized kernel. Note that, in most cases, a custom-built kernel is not necessary.