Many of the hardware drivers for the linux operating system are pluggable modules which are loaded by the kernel at boot time. These drivers allow for basic input and output, graphic display drivers, and networking. In order for your Linux software to communicate with your device, you will need to have the correct driver installed.
When using a good distribution such as Ubuntu, the operating system will recognize all of your devices automatically and install the device drivers for you. There is nothing that you need to do in order to use your devices. In some instances, however, you will need to manually install and configure drivers to get your devices to work.
It can be a bit daunting (to say the least) to get the correct driver installed and working. This is one of the major complaints about the Linux operating system concerning why it is not easy to use like Windows. Thanks to the efforts of open source developers and a trend of device manufacturers of creating open source drivers, these problems are becoming less and less of an issue. We are quickly getting to a point where the advantages of using Windows is disappearing. Even Microsoft Windows Vista has many problems with devices.
We recommend Ubuntu linux for those who don't want to mess with device drivers too much. Currently, it has the best auto detection, installation and configuration for devices that we have seen. It was the only distribution that correctly configured a common PCMCIA netgear wirelesss 801.1g card on our Inspiron laptop. They also offer excellent support for their free distribution.