Re: redesigning the debian installer
Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org> writes:
> On Tue, Sep 12, 2000 at 07:57:23PM -0700, Joey Hess wrote:
> > Is hardware detection needed much in other architectures?
Absolutely. And it works much better on other architectures.
> > None of them
> > have the same proliferation of crappy hardware as the x86 world. I guess
> > everything we've discussed about PCI hardware applies to alphas too.
> > Anything else on other architectures that needs to be detected?
>
> Most everything under UltraSPARC is either PCI, or it's built into the
> kernel (standard hardware). In fact, 90% of UltraSPARC installs do not
> need to load a single module to get enough functionality for an install.
> This includes all supported SCSI, ethernet and IDE drivers.
>
> As for SPARC, it doesn't have PCI, but again the standard hardware is
> built into the kernel, so no need for hardware detection here.
>
> There are so few needed drivers for SPARC/UltraSPARC (no wacked out
> "only-one-person-owns-it" type of hardware), that it was possible to
> compile most of them into the kernel directly and still fit on the rescue
> disk.
That's true, but a more generalized point is that more and more
hardware (sparc, ultrasparc, powerpc, dunno about the rest) support
openfirmware or openboot, and it's possible to traverse the
openfirmware device tree with pretty damn good results.
This is relevant to a number of what I consider pretty major
weaknesses in the Potato installation system, such as detection of
whether we want an SMP kernel, proper configuration of mouse devices
on powerpc/sparc, proper detection of CD-ROM for the purposes of
generating the /dev/cdrom link, etc.
--
.....Adam Di Carlo....adam@onShore.com.....<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>
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