Comments on: Linux Hardware Compatibility Sites: Does anyone do it right?

By: Fred

Fred — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 22:55:22 +0000

InTheLoop – you can edit only for the hardware that you own. That’s probably why you don’t see how to edit it if you look at any hardware…

By: InTheLoop

InTheLoop — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 21:55:12 +0000

Sound like a good idea. I am probably just missing it, but I do not see how people can edit the information.

By: Fred

Fred — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:05:09 +0000

InTheLoop – I have added a first implementation of the wiki idea. You can see the results here: http://hardware4linux.info/component/31374/ and http://hardware4linux.info/component/13866/.

By: InTheLoop

InTheLoop — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:08:50 +0000

Fred – By the way, when I say wiki, I don’t mean a standard wiki, I just mean letting the users contribute the data.

Also, although I did not mention it, I think letting users install a program to look at their hardware and report the data back is a really good idea.

By: Fred

Fred — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:30:46 +0000

InTheLoop – A wiki is in my plan for hardware4linux. I was more thinking it would be useful to gather the commercial names of the devices but it could also act as you said to describe more precisely the devices.

By: InTheLoop

InTheLoop — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:36:26 +0000

Fred – When I say “features” I mean generic specifications for hardware such as Inkjet or Laser for printers or amount of RAM on a graphics card. To actually get the information into the site, I was thinking of a wiki-style approach where anyone could help out.

By: Fred

Fred — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 17:29:08 +0000

Having all the features of hardware is really difficult as it cannot be deduced automatically. What do you propose to solve this issue ?

By: InTheLoop

InTheLoop — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:55:13 +0000

lefty.crupps – I did include the Linux questions HCL. I believe that Fedora does send hardware info back if you let it and I think Ubuntu might under advanced options… I might be wrong about that though and I don’t know what Fedora does with that data.

Darrel W – True, but as far as I can see you can only do that within manufacturer, which is not very useful unless you have any a favorite brand.

By: Viz

Viz — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:23:01 +0000

The best thing to do is make a knoppix live cd, log in, then run:

# lspci

It will give you a list of hardware on your pci bus as well as the name of your southbridge controller. From there google is your friend.

By using a live cd you don’t need to make a commitment before finding out what works. You’ll never find stuff by specific product name since large groups of products may use the same chip.

The chip name is found with lspci and that’s what driver writers deal with, not the joeschmoe’s implementation called “Giant sound card with everything”.

It really cuts down all the noise to work with chip names and you’ll find answers faster.

lspci 4tw.

By: lefty.crupps

lefty.crupps — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:24:30 +0000

linuxquestions.org has a section with this as well; it has come in useful when i find a product on there, but that is kind of rare. I wish the major distros would get in gear and provide this information — they get to touch thousands of machines a day, why not send anonymous data back to the HQ and create an online database? How hard is it??