why there is a lot change in the hardware support features in different linux os?

Question

i am using lenovo b460 with 3 GB ram and 500 GB hard disk,(no graphics card). when i live boot Linux mint i was able to connect to WiFi.but when i booted up Ubuntu 11.4 i was not able to connect through WiFi.then later i installed Ubuntu 12.4 and then i got connected with WiFi, but after installing icons and themes through my unity i am not able to view the content in the terminal and the WiFi is also not connecting now even after i changed them all back. wireless connectivity

Answer 1

The change in hardware support is not really based on the GNU/Linux distribution you are running but on other factors.

The most important one being the version of the Linux kernel that your running distribution has.

• If a kernel is new it probably has support for newer hardware than an old kernel.
• Bugs and regressions can break support for your hardware meaning that you need to run an another (older or newer) kernel for the stuff to work.
• In the wireless world it's also often about what firmware ships with your distribution. Often a proprietary piece of software (aka firmware blob) needs to be loaded by the WiFi driver. If your distribution doesn't have it, maybe another has. (You can often download the firmware and extract it in to your running distribution of course.)