best way to determine devices with drivers

Zenaan Harkness zen at freedbms.net
Thu Jun 24 20:14:20 PDT 2004


On Fri, 2004-06-25 at 12:05, Jono Bacon wrote:
> Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> >That is indeed the plan with the Community Hardware Freedom DB (if you
> >think of a better/ shorter, non-ambiguous name, please post). And if the
> >XML format changes (gasp! :) it'll be a perl (or sed|pick your language)
> >script away.
> I would call it the Open Software Hardware Database. :)

Your opinion noted :)

> How will the XML format change? Isn't this the XML format in FDI files 
> or do you have your own XML format?

I was responding to someone else's concern about the FDI format/
expansion of that format.

Our canonical format is an SQL db - we are working on the schema at this
point.

We can and will generate any required format - and any changes someone
needs will hopefully be a small sed script/ "output munger update" away.

> >In Debian for example, I think that all kernel-modules will be a part of
> >package kernel-modules-2.XXX.
> >
> >If there really are "fully" cross-kernel-version modules in hal
> >(certainly wouldn't be cross-arch), then the hal modules might go in a
> >separate package, eg hal-kernel-modules-2.XXX, or just in the primary
> >hal package.
> >
> >I personally can't see that happening though. I imagine they'll just be
> >kernel modules like all other kernel modules, and get installed into
> >/lib/modules/kernel-VERSION like all other kernel modules.
> >  
> Sorry, I am a little confused here. What do you mean by 'modules in 
> hal'? Are we not just talking about stock kernel modules?

That's what I would have thought. Perhaps I didn't read the thread
right. I thought people were talking about cross-kernel-version modules,
or some sort of more "generic" modules. I can't speak more to that.

> >I think you're right. At least, there's a lot that it makes sense for us
> >to provide to hal. [device, kernel, module, distro] mappings is one we
> >will be providing.
> >
> It does seem like the project is basically automating the process of FDI 
> file creation, and working alongside other projects to provide automatic 
> driver installation. Maybe you should work closely with Andrew to ensure 
> there is no cross-over and duplication of work.

We are primarily producing a comprehensive hardware information
database. Generation of FDI files, or any other format should be easy.
We will of course keep in close contact with this list and hope to
minimize duplicated effort.

cheers
zen

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