best way to determine devices with drivers

[Jono Bacon]

Andrew Luecke wrote:
> Actually, turns out i was worried about nothing.. phew. for a very
> short time i was starting to think that some software, like digital
> cameras didn't use a kernel module.. luckily, i'm wrong. I found out
> stuff like digital cameras use the Mass storage module in the kernel,
> so, luckily, it will work like I want it to (when the linux.driver
> works again) ;)

All digital camera's pretty much use USB mass storage. The challenge is 
distinguishing that a device is a camera as opposed to a Nokia phone 
with an MP3 player, as opposed to a card reader, as opposed to a PDA. 
These different devices need to appear in GNOME with an icon that 
indicates the type of device - just displaying a hard drive icon will be 
confusing because the user will not see the device as a storage device 
and instead as a gadget.

> By the way, has anyone here thought of extending HAL to work over
> network, like recording the networked devices.. It's always handy to
> know what capabilities your toaster has when you plug it into the
> network ;)

This would be incredible. Imagine if you could access a digital camera 
plugged into a Windows box across the network. I imigine this is nigh on 
  impossible though. It would be incredibly cool to see other devices 
attached to other machines on your desktop and access them though. This 
would also be really handy for things such as wireless access points, 
printers etc. How viable is this?

	Jono

-- 
Jono Bacon - http://www.jonobacon.org/
Writer / Journalist / Consultant / Developer

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