Re: Linux Incompatibility List

[Lee Revell <rlrevell@joe-job.com>]

On Sun, 2004-08-22 at 00:15, Kyle Moffett wrote:
> > Good idea, we should have something like two lists one for "chips" and 
> > one for "containers of chips" aka whole systems. That way it could be 
> > cross-referenced in a database-like way with a nice gtk frontend. The 
> > project probably ressemble the pci-ids project. That would pave the 
> > way for a free(as in speech) hardware purchasing guide.
> 
> A well designed guide could go a long way toward convincing companies 
> to release specs.  When a well known hardware website has user 
> testimonials that the drivers suck, the tech support are unhelpful, and 
> the company just doesn't get it, said company will probably tend to 
> listen.
> 

Takashi Iwai's 'Writing an ALSA driver' (google for it) is IMHO the
exemplar in this area.  It is written at *exactly* the right level.
Several major vendors have come on alsa-devel and posted to the effect
that they followed this guide and have their driver 99% working, they
just need help with this or that, someone answers a question or two, and
bang, one more Linux-supported device.  There should be a document of
this quality covering every major category of driver.

Lee