[PATCH] pnp.ids

[David Zeuthen]

Pozsár Balázs wrote:
> So, in the end, we are down to installing some package(s) and things 
> just work. Where are these packages come from?
> a) Your linux distro vendor. This is a non-case, because you could (and 
>    should!) already have it via up2date or whatever.
>    (For example, if we are talking about a kernel driver, updated kernel 
>    packages can ship the new drivers.)
> b) Other sites. I am really pessimistic about these... Can you image 
>    that all (most) vendors on the world would cooperate on a system 
>    where linux drivers are automatically downloaded from their sites?
>    Come on...

Here's a strawman: they sure as hell are not going to do that unless we 
have the infrastructure for receiving them. NVIDIA probably comes 
closest to automatically updating your drivers.

>    And anyway, just look at the current kernel development trends:
>    All leading kernel devs are pushing the policy "our way, or the 
>    highway", iow, push your driver in the main tree or your own.

There are lots of other interesting to know about a device than the 
kernel driver. For instance, whether it works with your kernel and 
operating system at all. Also, some distros have a policy of only 
shipping drivers that is in the kernel.org kernel.

> All in all, users should receive drivers and driver updates via package 
> updates. And that is system is already implemented and working 
> perfectly.
> 

Hey - that's what I said in my use-case. Thing is, you normally want to 
package up the drivers as separate RPM's or DEB's and there needs to be 
some way of knowing that a device, for which you do not have a driver, 
requires this driver. Also, it's useful to know that even though you got 
the driver, you need this or that firmware.

Lots of drivers for my hardware is not in the kernel.org kernel and thus 
not in Fedora which is the distribution that I use. However, a number of 
3rd party repositories do carry those drivers as RPM's that I can 
install via yum.

David
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