[linux-elitists] Our little side project... Just Linux Hardware (dot com) (fwd)
Eugen Leitl
eugen at leitl.org
Wed Mar 26 17:01:00 CET 2003
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 21:24:24 +0000
From: Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>
To: linux-elitists at zgp.org
Subject: Re: [linux-elitists] Our little side project... Just Linux
Hardware (dot com)
on Wed, Mar 26, 2003 at 10:48:42AM -0500, Michael Bacarella (mbac at netgraft.com) wrote:
> Shopping for hardware is a chore. For us elitists,
> it's especially bothersome because you have to investigate
> devices for Linux compatibility.
>
> This seems like a barrier to sale to me, so I thought about attacking the
> problem by building a site that only lists well supported
> Linux hardware, and provides links to purchasing it via
> affiliates.
>
> Here is the unborn unreleased please be gentle in criticism
> version we've come up with so far.
>
> http://justlinuxhardware.com/
>
> Probably not a directly viable business model, but I still
> think it's worth me spending money on. Consider, if the
> site is any good:
>
> 1. Shopping for Linux becomes a bit easier (hopefully?),
> which is better for the community.
>
> 2. Vendors who support Linux are rewarded by increased sales.
>
> 3. Retailers who sell vendor's products are rewarded by increased sales.
>
> 4. Companies who haven't decided to support Linux yet can see
> a real picture of what kind of business they're missing out on.
> The invisible hand...
>
> 5. Companies in step #4 who want to develop a Linux strategy
> have been introduced to an ally who can help them in their
> quest. And if this leads to work, I know a list or two of
> consultants who may be able to help us out...
>
> What do you folks think?
Good idea.
In one category, at least, there are two tools which may be very useful.
Assessing whole systems (particularly laptops) is a crapshoot. You
pretty much have to find out who's installed GNU/Linux on the same (or
often: a similar) model. And then hand-tweak to get the thing up and
running.
Fortunately there are two tools which take a lot of the uncertainty out
of this picture. One is bootable GNU/Linux systems with extensive
hardware autodetection (e.g.: Knoppix). The other are tools to extract
system capabilities and configuration, and dump this to a file.
I've written one such of the latter, called system-info. There's a copy
at http://twiki.wethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/SystemInfoScript, along
with sample output.
This still isn't fully sufficient, though it's a good start. Among
other settings that would be useful:
- Suspend/hibernation & APM settings.
- hdparm configs.
- X configuration and/or spec.
Posting system specs and the output of system-info to a system review
site would be a strong positive step, and puts a minimal load on the
vendor (boot Knoppix, run script). I'd love to see someone run with
this.
Peace.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
"Life," said Marvin dolefully, "loathe it or ignore it, you can't
like it."
-- HHGTG
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