Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Hardware Software Linux

Online Repository for Hardware Configurations? 36

Posted by Cliff from the sharing-the-results-of-your-tweaking dept.
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."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Online Repository for Hardware Configurations? More

Online Repository for Hardware Configurations?

Comments Filter:
  • Hmmm...How bout' LDP [tldp.org] ?
    • Maybe, but LDP by itself doesn't always help. For instance CUPS: How many of us have never managed to get that beast to work? If it works out of the box for you, you're laughing, but if not you're on your own since the CUPS development guys just shrug and say "RTFM you clod" without actually making TFM sufficiently comprehensive to justify the admonition. Same goes for ALSA for those of us who are not running 2.5.x kernels on production boxes, though to their credit, the ALSA team do make more of an effort
      • http://127.0.0.1:631 - You don't need no stinkin' docs!

        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.
        • http://127.0.0.1:631 - You don't need no stinkin' docs!

          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).

    • Actually, The key to setting up CUPS is remove things like foomatic. Just start cupsd and point your web browser to http://127.0.0.1:631. It's actually a pretty darn good and easy to use setup. I've helped quite a few people by just pointing them to that instead of programs that "simplify setting up CUPS".

  • Right here.. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Graelin ( 309958 )
    RedHat has an HCL [redhat.com] for their distro. I highly doubt much (if any) of it is RedHat specific. Kernel modules are kernel modules afterall, they care not the distro.

    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)

      by Asprin ( 545477 ) <(moc.oohay) (ta) (dlonrasg)> on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:56AM (#6160344) Homepage Journal

      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 /etc, restart Samba and I'm in business.

      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?

      • 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?

      • 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.

        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)

          by Asprin ( 545477 )
          Do you want people to take Linux seriously as an alternative to Windows for anything beyond Apache and Sendmail? Everyone starts at zero for everything, so I'm not sure why it's a bad idea to learn from configs that have been done and redone a zillion times already. I'm also not saying that the work is finished when the script is installed, either -- there's loads of tweaking and tuning to be done later -- but if you give new users a ledge to start from, it's an easier climb for them.

          • Re:Right here.. (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Wakko Warner ( 324 ) *
            Everyone starts at zero for everything, so I'm not sure why it's a bad idea to learn from configs that have been done and redone a zillion times already.

            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
            • I'm not looking for a job. If I were, I'd be out of business because running a Linux box in a business environment is not something I'm good at. But I do want to get cvs-conf working on my home servers. I'd love to try the LDAP idea the [great- ?] grandparent poster mentioned. But I don't care enough to wade through countless pages of vague documentation that doesn't tell me how to do what I want. It's one thing to do it for the user, it's another to provide enough information for them to do it themselves.
      • 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.

        This is exactly wha

    • There are serious problem with forums (fora?) and mailing lists.

      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)

    by dhunley ( 16816 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:09AM (#6159930) Homepage
    You could try the Linux hardware database (URL escapes me), or you could post your write-ups on the Linux StepByStep site (www.linux-sxs.org [linux-sxs.org]) which is entirely about "how I did xx with Linux"...

  • Just Linux Hardware (Score:4, Informative)

    by skreuzer ( 613775 ) <skreuzer&metawire,org> on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:30AM (#6160112) Homepage
    take a look at Just Linux Hardware [justlinuxhardware.com] While it is fairly new, it is growing into quite a resource.
    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)

      by orn ( 34773 )
      Just Linux Hardware [slashdot.org] is pretty darn limited. It doesn't even have a date or version field. (though these are sometimes in the "additional" data section)

      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)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Tuesday June 10, 2003 @09:56AM (#6160348) Homepage Journal

    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.

  • The Linux Hardware Database, which was at one time on http://lhd.datapower.net, then moved to http://lhd.zdnet.com, has, unfortunately gone by the wayside. It was an amazing project, and I personally would love to see another like it.
  • Last week I had to pull from the closet and old IBM-8514 monitor because I sold my Viewsonic and my AcerView crap out and died with a *BZZZT* and smoke.

    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

  • 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...

    :)

  • I've had this thought before, I've been inspired after many hours trying to get my Whatcha-callit-device's to work under Linux.

    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

  • 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...

Slashdot Top Deals

For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!

Close