The ease of installation varies greatly by distribution. Typical distributions use simple live CDs or GUI installers with some offering a menu-driven installer. Others target more specialized groups and require source to be copied and compiled. The Linux system can also be built completely from scratch or from source codes.
Installation time may range from 6 minutes to more than an hour. Most free drivers are included in distributions or can be found in online archives. Devices that do not have free drivers available due to licensing issues can get hold of proprietary drivers which are available from manufacturers or special archives. It was previously difficult for the average user to install Linux distributions but the problem has been simplified by a system that allows users to boot fully functional Linux systems directly from a CD or DVD which can also be installed on the hard drive.