Talk:Hardware

Crazyeddie: I'm going to set up a link to a HCL in the wiki, but leave a link to the Forums HCL. I'd personally like the wiki to be as self-sufficient as possible, while linking to external sources also. I consider the Forums to be an external link btw.

In other words, instead of just linking to resources in the Forums, I believe it's better to incorporate the information in the Forums into the wiki, and then link to the Forum. Anybody have any comments about this philosophy?

[What happens when the content in the HCL changes - duplicating content is a recipe for divergent content]


 * Trying to re-create the entire HCL in the Wiki is really counterproductive IMHO. The Wiki is good at storing knowledge, the HCL is custom built to store, rank and organize hardware compatibility.  It calculates average compatibility scores, sorts prices, etc.  As always the right tool for the right job is the way I tend to lean.  Thoughts?
 * Jeremy 17:55, Mar 7, 2004 (EST)


 * Crazyeddie: I think it's best to do it *both* ways. I think many people will use the wiki who will never go to the forums. The Forums HCL will be better, but for some the wiki HCL will be good enough. I think, overall, the wiki will be best as a "one stop shop" which also provides links to the "right tool for the right job" for those who want to dig deeper. Sort of a swiss army knife vs a Sears Craftsman Phillips head screw driver. For example, I would personally like to see the man pages put in the wiki, just so long as it isn't *just* the man pages. I'm often sitting in front of a windows box, wishing I could look up a linux command.


 * RZ: Wanted to add a link to the Linux Compatibility Databas www.linux-hardware-guide.com but there seems to be an error with the Akismet blacklist. An general error prevents any changes to the Wiki page...

Carl: New topic: there doesn't appear to be any link on the main Hardware page to the page for USB Card Readers []. Nor is it obvious to me where in the structure of this page that topic would fall.

Jollyblue: Another new topic - what about networking hardware? Especially wireless adaptors...
 * Feel free to add any appropriate links/headings as you see fit - thanks. -- Skyline 01:26, Jun 16, 2005 (EDT)

Linux is not ready yet for big time.
I am a newbie and here are my observations:


 * they would better fit to Talk:Linuxintro. --ThorstenStaerk 18:37, November 3, 2010 (UTC)

a) With every distribution, something or another does not work, mainly in the areas of desktop computing (sound,gui,video cards).

b) Support for new technology lags by more than one year. (Need list of standard WI-FI cards that I can plug in and the kernel will recognize.

c) Gnome needs to not lose information on a desktop switch. On the return, the window is blank for up to 1 minute. It is only with the next write to the screen that information reappears.

d) Openoffice under java under linux is slooow but wonderful. Need a more efficient java machine, or better still, with the newer architectures, a kernal that is a java machine, without the layers of overhead.

e) A glossary that would make sense to all newcomers. YUM. GREP, and RPM and other names are meaningless to beginners.


 * I disagree. A good step would be to rename grep to search-string as Microsoft did in their PowerShell. Or to rename yum to, say, "install". Anyway as we cannot change this, we are forced to explain all this in this wiki. See commands for something that is close to what you request. --ThorstenStaerk 18:37, November 3, 2010 (UTC)

f) For every linux server, there are at least 500,000 desktops. Linux concentration should be for an open desktop where there will be the most users.

As a newbie, here is something for you to refute. And as an example of my frustration, here are two examples.

On my dedicated pc (AMD w 512ram and 80-gig disk), sound in the root logon does not work, and crashes with a message about a faulty parameter. Which parameter is faulty is not known to me, as the error message is not specific enough. Oh yes, sound works for a user-id. No information is available to describe how to repair it.
 * I agree. Funny thing is I describe the opposite problem for suse under http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Suse_10.1_tips_%26_tricks On a more general note, I tried to document your options on sound troubleshooting. However, I agree on the whole and cannot change it. --ThorstenStaerk 18:37, November 3, 2010 (UTC)

I need a wifi card, but the drivers and wifi cards dont line up. I have seen drivers, but no list of cards that are supported. I have been using wifi on laptops and with a usb device for 2 years. Where is the distribution provided driver to go with any adapter?

So, if you cannot direct attach to a router, or use dial up, linux is a non-entity.

Please prove me wrong. I want to justify the hours I spent digging, to my wife, who says, why am I wasting my time.

Leslie from Montreal Canada

Can you tell me if there is a low cost wireless bridge available
I am the newbie that posted the previous message about wifi. I understand that there are wifi bridges that would allow me to take the eth0 cable to it, and it would act as the interface to my wifi router.

Who has had good success with such a device. Can they please email or post their success(es)?

Leslie in Montreal

Booting process
Not sure if there is a page for this anywhere, tried to search but unsuccessful. I would like to see a page where the boot process of Linux was described in some detail - with links to other pages when appropriate.

For a typical IBM PC type processor (i386 etc) one should probably also say a few words about how this interact with BIOS and the CPU in general. Maybe also have links to booting on other processors.

The role of GRUB and LILO in this should also be explained.

How different flavors of Linux differ in thedoes the boot should also be mentioned.

How various hardware is booted. This boot is in some cases initialized by BIOS which detects the unit etc and then Linux only grab the info retrieved by BIOS but in other cases it is Linux itself that does the initialization and detection of the hardware.

Finally one should probably also say not only how the boot goes until init is started but also then move on to related topics. Hardware detection, services startup. Also, on typical versions of Linux used by desktop you will also have startup of X in this and then we come into different flavors of desktops. I am mostly familiar with Gnome but I am sure KDE and other desktops does things not exactly the same way Gnome does it at boot.

The boot process is considered over when the user regains control and can log in. However, also the log in process can be appropriate to mention here. And as such we can consider the boot process to terminate when the user's desktop is fully logged in.

Other related issues in this is automounting and automatic detection of changed hardware (new hardware added or old hardware removed from the system).

I would like to see more info about this boot process and how various modules interact in order to make the booting process work.

If there is a page that discusses this already, where can I find a link to that page?

searching for boot process, I found Background:_How_Linux_Starts_Up