External Device Drivers Formats

• An external device driver might come with full sources, that we need to compile. This is the best scenario.
• An external device driver might come as a binary-only module. In this case we need to get a driver that was compiled specifically for the kernel version we are using.
• If we use a less-commonly-used distribution, we might not find a driver for our distribution's kernel...
• At which time we either dumb the hardware, or take the best "vanilla" kernel for which there is a binary driver available.
• The driver could come as a hybrid - half source, and half binary. the Source-part need to be compiled against our kernel, and it'll make sure the binary part works.

Originally written by guy keren