Online Repository for Hardware Configurations? 36
Great_Jehovah asks: "I've done a lot of trial-and-error and spent time researching getting various devices (e.g. motherboards, USB devices, DVD burners) working on Linux. I've also spent a bunch of time configuring different pieces of software for particular applications. I would like a nice centralized place to share these pieces of knowledge and also to see what others have done. I've looked on Google but either I can't conjure the right keywords, or this place just doesn't exist yet. Anyone know where such a site exists? If not, I'll start one."
A nice place to start might be... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A nice place to start might be... (Score:2)
Re:A nice place to start might be... (Score:1)
ALSA? They have modules.conf entries for all sound cards on their site. Also, the new Knoppix V3.2 has alsa autoconfiguration scripts now. Try booting with the command-line: 'knoppix alsa [driver_for_your_card]' or you can leave out the last argument and it will be autodetected.
Re:A nice place to start might be... (Score:2)
Like I said: it's only any good if it works out of the box. If it doesn't, then you're stuffed, since the documentation (such as it is) is not helpful.
And yes, I did say that ALSA do make an effort (though their entries don't always work).
Re:A nice place to start might be... (Score:2, Informative)
Right here.. (Score:2, Informative)
It's not entirely clear what you mean by "configuring different pieces of software for particular applications." Chances are good whatever you did was documented somewhere in the application's docs, forums, etc. Why not just use them as they were intended?
If you managed to combine all this data in one monolithic database I'm not sure I would us
Re:Right here.. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, no, no. This is a GREAT idea - think about it like "C Code Snippets" for Linux configuration files. Here are a few examples:
Case #1
I need a config file for Samba to emulate an NT4 PDC. I download the prewritten boilerplate config file, change the domain name, put it in
Case #2
Or how about a config file for Sendmail that uses Spam Assassin for spam filtering and renattach for viruses.
Case #3
I want to turn my old 386 into a Linksys-style NAT box. The only imbound port I need mapped is my web server (port 80). You got config files for that?
Case #4
Shared email address books with LDAP. I want to run an LDAP server with slapd to provide shared email address books, but I don't want to use LDAP for any sort of network authentication. I just want users to be able to create folders and contacts and move the contacts around in the folders (and add, change, delete and update them, of course.) Apparently, I'm the only person that ever thought of doing this because I haven't found ANY docs anywhere that describe this sort of thing.
Your target audience here is beginners and administrators who are migrating to Linux services who want to get things working without having to read and decode **ALL** of the documentation up front.
Let's face it, with if you take any given piece of software,there really are only a few different basic configs most people want to start out with, and once you get basic functionality in place, you can tweak to customize from there. Hey, they did it with sendmail, right?
Linux Cookbook (Score:2)
Mod parent up.
That is a good idea, and something that I would find very usefull. I find it annoying that everytime I want to setup some common service on my linux box, I have to wade through a huge HOWTO and read a some articles online, when I could simply modify a simple code snippet.
Does such a repository of snippets exist anywhere?
Re:Linux Cookbook (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Right here.. (Score:2)
In other words, I shouldn't trust these people to know how to fix any of these things when they break.
- A.P.
Re:Right here.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Right here.. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a bad idea because you're teaching people to learn by rote memorization and coincidence, while giving them no real insight as to why or how any configuration option works the way it does, or what other desirable options may exist. Most well-written man pages should have example usage anyway, and most large software packages (sendmail, samba, BIND, a
Re:Right here.. (Score:2)
Re:Right here.. (Score:1)
Re:Right here.. (Score:1)
This is exactly wha
A sketch of a proposed solution (Score:3, Interesting)
First, there's the signal-to-noise ratio, which can get pretty awful even in fora designed originally to support just one piece of software or one piece of functionality. See for instance the number of different lists you need to hunt down just to get started diagnosing a problem with subsytems involving components from different sources. eg getting the TV functionality on a Radeon All-in-Wonder to work with your distro's patched-up kernel, t
they sort of exist (Score:3, Informative)
Re:they sort of exist (Score:4, Informative)
LHD is dead (thanks ZDNET) (Score:2, Informative)
Re:they sort of exist (Score:1)
Just Linux Hardware (Score:4, Informative)
Plus, the revenue the site generates gets donated to open source projects and orginizations, which is also pretty cool
Re:Just Linux Hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
You can't scan a list and pick out hardware that works well together.
In all, thumbs down. But maybe it could be improved...
Great Idea (Score:4, Interesting)
That Linux hardware database, IIRC, was hosted by a company that might have slipped under the waves with the fizzling of the dotcom boom.
But you have a really great idea.
Newbies and veterans alike would find it useful to know if some piece of hardware would work under a particular version of Linux.
Old hardware is important in cases where there isn't a lot of money to keep up with the latest hardware releases; schools, charities, and even businesses in the undeveloped world would benefit from such a knowledge base.
Also, if there were some means of making a spam-free 2-way communications channel from the site hosting the hardware db, it might be useful to kernel developers who want to know if their patch might cause a bad interaction in some corner case of two or three unusual old pieces of hardware that they don't have access to. They could send email to the owner of the machine with the configuration they want to test against asking how their patch affected the system.
Your idea would really blossom [I'm sure something like this must already exist at Red Hat, SuSE and other big Linux outfits, OSDL perhaps, despite their enterprise focus?] if someone were to setup a network of deliberately heterogeneous machines, chosen for their diversity, a zoo, with the ability to bring up and test out different kernels, configuration parameters, and end user applications. The kind of machines that would go into this zoo would mostly be inexpensive, too.
Linux Hardware Database (Score:1)
Re:Linux Hardware Database (Score:2)
It's official, Netcraft confirms [netcraft.com] lhd.zdnet.com is dead. It is certainly missed. Truly an Internet icon. ;-)
I needed it lask week ... Yes would ne very good (Score:1)
Last time I used the 8514 it took me 2 days to configure X for the 1024x768 87Hz Interlaced mode. as you would imagine, there are no docs for this monitor on the web (or IBM site) and i had to try ModeLine after Modeline until i got ona that kina worked and then spent a cuuple of hours tunning it.
So, YES it would be nice, especialiy now that i'm back to 64
IBM-8514(OT) (Score:1)
Re:IBM-8514(OT) (Score:1)
So
Re:IBM-8514(OT) (Score:1)
#
# 1024x768@43.5Hz, Interlaced mode (8514/A standard)
# Horizontal Sync = 35.5kHz
# Timing: H=(0.54us, 1.34us, 1.25us) V=(0.23ms, 0.23ms, 0.93ms)
#
# name clock horizontal timing vertical timing flags
"1024x768i" 44.9 1024 1048 1208 1264 768 776 784 817 Interlace
...& when you fire that 8514 up... (Score:1)
(happened to me 2 yrs ago, near enough same situation. It took 2 weeks to do it, so watch it).
Re:...& when you fire that 8514 up... (Score:1)
half an hour and google [xfree86.org]
#
# 1024x768@43.5Hz, Interlaced mode (8514/A standard)
# Horizontal Sync = 35.5kHz
# Timing: H=(0.54us, 1.34us, 1.25us) V=(0.23ms, 0.23ms, 0.93ms)
#
# name clock horizontal timing vertical timing flags
"1024x768i" 44.9 1024 1048 1208 1264 768 776 784 817 Interlace
Anyone offering bandwidth? I've got the domain... (Score:2)
I registered thismachine.org a while ago, for a project that I accept I'll never actually get around to. Seems like it'd be pretty appropriate: can I get this machine to work? Go to thismachine.org...
Here's a thought (Score:1)
Let me describe my idea using my notebook PC. It's an old Toshiba Pentium 133. I found a website that nicely walks my way through the installation, it was great. However, the instructions were for seting up SuSe, I had Debian. So there were a few small descrepencies on how to set up Linux.
It would be nice to have a deb/rpm that installs all the complimentary packages and edits the
Resources: (Score:2)
Auld Monitors: Monitor World [monitorworld.com]
PCI Vendor and Device lists [yourvote.com]
( maybe you can get Knoppix [knopper.net] to tell you, with "lspci", what a device is, for the previous one...
Many know of Adrian's Rojak Pot [rojakpot.com] BIOS guide, sometimes useful for weird BIOS 'features' like the older "Format HD" that doesn't tell you this is for old RLL drives... even though no ESDI/RLL drives were sold in the year the mobo was made... (ouch)
I bookmarked, but haven't bothered with yet, HardwareSecrets.com [hardwaresecrets.com], maybe it's got the stuff youse want...