>Maybe it would make sense to have an on-line database of configuration
>information that a Linux installation program would reference when setting
>up a new machine. All Linux users and distributors would then have access
>to the same data. As the database grows so does the ease of Linux
>installation.
Makes sense, but what information would be stored in this database? And how
would it be used?
I see it that either the database would "know" how to detect automatically
hardware. This would be a risk, however, because automatic detection not
always work as it should. Of course, information about the situations known
to fail could be stored to the database also to workaround the problems.
Another way would be to ask the user what computer he has (eg. "IBM
Aptiva") and the database would then tell the known configuration for
this computer (eg. "- IBM Aptiva has Cirrus Logic video card and IDE hard
disk").
Also you have to remember that there are a lot of people who don't have
connection to Internet directly (they use either modem or don't have access
at all, especially on poorer countries). So the system would need either to
work without any database or the database would need to come with Linux
distribution.
One problem I have found: it is sometimes very difficult to find certain
drivers for Linux even if they would exist. One example is Genius handheld
scanner, for which I searched a driver for a year or so and almost was
going to write my own driver until I found the driver. Some WWW page which
would contain links to all existing drivers would help. Something actively
maintained _and_ possibility to anyone to send new link to some driver
online.
(btw: anyone using the Genius scanner?? anyone maintaining it?? If there
are no other maintainers, I volunteer to maintain it. contact me!)
This was a bit off-topic, but not completely (it should concern device
driver developers) and important topic anyway, so I posted it to the list
anyway :-}
-- | Tuukka Toivonen <tuukkat@ee.oulu.fi> [PGP public key | Homepage: http://www.ee.oulu.fi/~tuukkat/ available] | Try also finger -l tuukkat@ee.oulu.fi | Studying information engineering at the University of Oulu +-----------------------------------------------------------
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/