How about installing new hardware AFTER system installation?

[Eric Feliksik]

mmealman wrote:
> This isn't an Ubuntu issue so much as a Linux configuration issue.
Of course, that's true.

> [...]

> But let's say you swap where your HDs are in your drive bay. That will
> swap the drive letters and cause your fstab file to be wrong. Your
No surprise, yes :)

> sound card should work pretty much automatically and so should your
> mouse if the mouse protocol being used it compatible to your last one.
That's my point! If you use a mouse with another protocol the X.org 
config is not automatically changed, is it?

> 
> So to answer your question, if the hardware is supported by the Linux
> kernel you can unplug, replug, swap, and so on to your heart's content
> and Linux will happily load the needed module. But if the hardware
> requires a different config from your old hardware, you'll need to
> tweak. 

Okay, so the situation is as follows (correct me if I'm wrong): On 
install, Ubuntu detects hardware and sets up configuration files 
accordingly. After that, hotplugged (usb) things can be configured 
automitically. If some hardware is added/changed and it needs a 
different configuration than the previous/existing hardware, it needs 
manual tweaking.

You also say mouses and soundcards are almost never a problem. How about 
videocards? They don't automatically work, since X.org's config will be 
plain wrong. Am I right? What could be done about this?

Eric