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"Just works with Linux"
"Just works with Linux"
Posted Dec 15, 2005 6:43 UTC (Thu) by njhurst (guest, #6022)Parent article: "Just works with Linux"
There was a list floating around a while back called the linux incompatibility list (http://leenooks.com/) which listed devices that are broken, rather than those that work. I think idea was that as time progress the list got shorter and shorter. Sadly it appears to have prematurely got very short (the name doesn't resolve for me, though google still has a cache).
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Linux Incompatibility List - Ooops:-)
Posted Dec 15, 2005 7:34 UTC (Thu) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link]
It's still there, but for some reason I didn't get the email saying I needed to renew it, and it expired last night. I have now paid it up for two years and it is back on line!
It is still going strong (unfortunately), and I still think it's a very valid idea, because it best deals with the incentives that Our Editor mentions.
In other words, if stuff "just works", you're unlikely to go poking around finding out what it is and reporting it to a web site. On the other hand, if you discover your brand new Widget 2000 doesn't work with Linux, perhaps you'll be irritated enough to go list it on the Incompatibility List. Also, perhaps people shopping will see which manufacturers are to be avoided, and spend their money somewhere else.
Also, there really is a lot of stuff out there that works with Linux. Much more than hardware that doesn't, so a list of things to avoid is likely to be shorter than a big long list of everything that works fine.
A few more comments
Posted Dec 15, 2005 8:16 UTC (Thu) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link]
Turns out the emails warning me were thrown out by Thunderbird's spam filter:-( I'm not really very happy with it (tons of spam gets through, and apparently it loses important emails once in a while), but that's another matter.
One way to make a compatibility list work would be to automate it, to take some of the annoyance out of reporting things.
You'd run a program which would pop up a dialog asking you if it's ok to look at your hardware and send the information back to some centralized database in order to help improve Linux. At that point, it would look through your system, and ask you whether everything seems to be working ok, or where possible, automate testing. That might be sort of tricky, though, especially where less knowledgeable users are concerned...
A few more comments
Posted Dec 22, 2005 17:16 UTC (Thu) by ArsonSmith (guest, #5695) [Link]
I think it needs to be broken down by chipsets that are suppose to be supported in the kernelV2425-3 10-100 ethernet chipset
then by cards that support it
Kellogs ethernet card cheerio net interface netsurfer pro II
then list working status
number of people that have gotten this to work works out of box (no configuration) works after mild configuration requires out of kernel modules to be compiled or patches to kerenl does not work
"Just works with Linux"
Posted Dec 15, 2005 12:25 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link]
I disagree. Such a list would be very nearly useless for anyone wanting to buy linux-hardware.The reason is simple: no list is complete, and a list such as this one would likely be less complete than most.
Now, with a positive list: "these devices work:" it is of less consequence to me if the list is complete, if I buy something on the list, and the list-info is accurate (a different problem) then it'll work. OK, so maybe in reality I had a bigger choise than the list gave me, but that's mostly of less consequence, I don't need 10 graphics-adapters anyway, if I get one that works well with free drivers I'm satisfied.
With the negative list, I can't feel secure buying something just because it's not on the list. It could simply be that it's missing from the list because the list is incomplete. (or, like for the other, the list could be inaccurate)
Incompatible List
Posted Dec 15, 2005 15:37 UTC (Thu) by cdmiller (subscriber, #2813) [Link]
There is plenty of usefulness in both the positive and negative lists, I just went and added to the Incompatible list entries for DELL servers and workstations under their Hardware Monitoring entry. Good information to have when looking for Linux servers in particular.
"Just works with Linux"
Posted Dec 26, 2005 22:16 UTC (Mon) by oak (subscriber, #2786) [Link]
> With the negative list, I can't feel secure buying something just> because it's not on the list. It could simply be that it's missing
> from the list because the list is incomplete. (or, like for the other,
> the list could be inaccurate)
It's a fact of life that "Positive list" won't be covering everything and
then when you see a very good deal on something you'd like to have, it's
good to know that it will not work, instead of buying it, testing it and
finding that yes, the reason why it wasn't on the positive list was
because it was broken, not because it was new (product/manufactorer/etc).