Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 16 Jan 2002 14:33:28 -0000 | From | Alex Bligh - linux-kernel <> | Subject | Re: Aunt Tillie builds a kernel (was Re: ISA hardware discovery -- the elegant solution) |
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Rob,
>> Example: put in some wget based thingy, which goes to some (fixed) web >> site, searches for (some extracted or Tillie composed string) which >> describes the hardware (bound to have been bought as-is and never >> opened), pulls down a set of config files and heuristics to determine >> between them (look at BIOS, or 'that model will always show this or that >> in the PCI table') and guesses the correct (initial) config as tested by >> some other user. > > Meaning you'll continue to be six months behind the curve, and fail every > time Dell tweaks its laptop layout. (Dell does things like switch sound > chips without switching model numbers ALL THE TIME.) > > Are you volunteering to maintain this database?
No, noone 'maintains' it; I actually /meant/ search. So if you run it on a Redhat distribution, it goes queries redhat first, then lists IBM T23 - Alex Bligh IBM T23 new version - Rob Landley ... etc.
IE is the minimum amount of automation to simulate typing the thing into google. (the advantage of doing this over using google alone is that X may not be working at this stage and lynx might daunt Aunt Tillie).
Obviously you will need some magic tag at the top of a config file to make it easilly identifiable to search engines. And no doubt some fools will fill files with crap.
> So no-name assembled white boxes from e-machines and stuff wouldn't be > supported?
Correct; I'm sure the probing configurator has a place too.
> Have you TRIED the current auto-configurator?
No, to be honest. However, now you have set me the challenge, I'll report back on how well or otherwise it works.
> Assuming every IBM T23 has the same hardware in it, which oddly enough is > a bit of a gamble. (OK, IBM is better at this than Dell, largely due to > inventory management reasons.) And assuming the finite number of > database maintainers has yet bought an IBM T23, and that the rest of the > world can wait until then.
Well, you'd wait until either your distro vendor had done one, or someone else had posted one and it had reached search-engine du-jour.
> Requiring live network access for the autoconfigurator to work is one > heck of an extra requirement, though. Most of the world is still using > dialup, you know...
True.
>> And Aunt Tillie (apart from the module changes whatever) >> can be using the kernel version etc. from their distro (recompiled), >> rather than the latest 2.[2468].xx with lots of new bugs^Wunwanted >> fixes in. > > You want to write some other tool.
Perhaps you are right.
> Giacamo and Eric started work on the autoprobe as a way to reduce the > number of questions the configurator showed people by eliminating > hardware that they provably do not have, and defaulting the stuff they > DO have to on. But it turns out that on any relatively recent machine, > it's an easy enough problem that you can autoprobe EVERYTHING and build > straight from that. So the Linux kernel could finally do "configure; > make; make install". > > I consider that a neat hack.
Sure I agree, if it works; my speculation is that it doesn't, if one boots with a default vendor kernel, on many machines. I would love to be proved wrong, so rather than debate further here, I have another T23 to set up so I'll boot it up from scratch, run the configurator, and see what happens.
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