Re: Linux Incompatibility List

Lee Revell
2004-08-22T05:58:42Z

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