UbuntuHCL.org launched [LWN.net]

UbuntuHCL.org is a comprehensive hardware database for Ubuntu users. You will find user submitted articles and reviews with comments, RSS feeds of the reviews and articles, enhanced user account security, a new user friendly layout and better search capabilities. Check out new hardware before you buy, and let other users know what works for you.

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UbuntuHCL.org launched

Posted Apr 1, 2008 19:59 UTC (Tue) by Simon80 (subscriber, #50887) [Link] (5 responses)

Seems to be reinventing the wheel, with ads in three different places on the page, and a gross
table-based layout.  Also, this issue isn't Ubuntu specific, so making it an Ubuntu specific
seems unnecessary.  Another thing: if I were designing one of these sites, the first thing I'd
ask for would be the output of lspci -n (possibly also lsusb), so that the site could
cross-reference devices between different systems (especially laptops).  Also, the user should
at the very least be entering things like what works out of the box, what doesn't work out of
the box, and what needs fixing to work in a format that the site can understand, so that it
can aggregate that information as well.

UbuntuHCL.org launched

Posted Apr 1, 2008 20:33 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] (2 responses)

There is a certain amount that's distro-specific about this sort of thing: different distros
will ship different drivers at different times, and there is variation in how easy it is to
get a different driver. For example, I've got a machine with a Radeon HD 2400 XT which isn't
supported in a stable Ubuntu yet, but which is supported (I think) in drivers that I could get
on a Gentoo system without other testing packages.

Of course, that could be handled with a common site that knew about different versions and
distro-specific sites that knew which reviews to provide, but then there's issues of which
driver versions have special problems with particular versions of non-driver software and so
forth that could cause problems for people.

UbuntuHCL.org launched

Posted Apr 2, 2008 6:57 UTC (Wed) by davidw (guest, #947) [Link]

When I originally launched the Linux Incompatibility List (at http://www.leenooks.com ) , I
thought about trying to categorize and classify everything in a database, but eventually opted
for a wiki format, so as to make it easier to add things without clicking through N forms.

Their site is pretty nice looking though, and it's true that for people with Ubuntu and a
specific piece of hardware, being specific might be better.  That said, part of the
incompatibility list goal is to simply put people off buying stuff from manufacturers who have
lots of unsupported or poorly supported hardware.

UbuntuHCL.org launched

Posted Apr 6, 2008 13:07 UTC (Sun) by fred (guest, #14141) [Link]

> Another thing: if I were designing one of these sites, the first thing I'd
> ask for would be the output of lspci -n

Something like http://hardware4linux.info/ ?

Fred

UbuntuHCL.org launched

Posted Apr 2, 2008 20:47 UTC (Wed) by skvidal (guest, #3094) [Link] (1 responses)

"Another thing: if I were designing one of these sites, the first thing I'd
ask for would be the output of lspci -n "

You mean like smolt?

http://smolts.org

UbuntuHCL.org launched

Posted Apr 5, 2008 23:57 UTC (Sat) by Cato (guest, #7643) [Link]

Thanks for the pointer, Smolt looks really good and is apparently already having a good impact
on quality of Fedora bug reports re hardware.  There are now packages for Ubuntu, Debian,
Suse, etc, though I'm working on a bug in the submission of data on Ubuntu (at least on my
Feisty box).

The impact of Smolt is far more than hardware compatibility - if it's bundled as opt-out only
in distros, it can also provide detailed arguments to hardware vendors such as NVidia and
others, by making the Linux user base visible to them.  Smolt is very careful to anonymise the
data which is only about hardware, so I see no reason why it could not be opt-out.

Ubuntu also has the Hardware Tester in Hardy which lets the user run tests on most of their
hardware and comment on each item including a yes/no on whether it worked.  This also goes
into a central DB but is distro specific - so it's not a replacement for Smolt.

Ubuntu Hydrochloride?

Posted Apr 2, 2008 0:11 UTC (Wed) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link] (1 responses)

Oh, Hardware Compatibility List (I guess).

Sorry, took me a minute.

Ubuntu Hydrochloride?

Posted Apr 2, 2008 8:41 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Heh.  I just decided I wasn't up-to-date on the kernel daemons and ignored the TLA.