hardware detection
I'm not currently on this list, yadda yadda..
I'm not sure anyone not on irc is aware of it, but I'm working on hardware
detection. I've got a bit of it working so far, but I'm still not
finished with it. I'm working with libdetect and trying to make its
output useful. This is easier said than done given that libdetect only
does its thing with a newer isapnptools (I have a NMU ready for dupload)
and then is primarily a tool for detecting PCI/ISA.. In other words, it's
somewhat ia32-centric right now. It apparently works on Alpha and PPC,
but I don't know if it does anything useful yet.
It's a ramdisk-based thing, just like other dists have been using. It
requires a small kernel patch which is fairly trivial as kernel patches go
(someone broke /linuxrc for ramdisks and the patch fixes it, possibly even
correctly...) All in all, the program can be used as part of a two-stage
detection process, the first stage fitting onto a ramdisk which can be
used and then removed from memory later. It's purpose is simply to get /
mounted (in case it's a scsi disk or a cdrom drive or something..) The
second stage can detect things like sound cards and the like.
It's still kinda in the early stages and I'd rather not stop to explain
the little details now, but I'm working on it for Progeny anyway and
intend to make it available outside of Progeny as soon as I have the major
kinks out of it. I may upload it to Debian, but only if it's likely to be
used. I don't want to maintain a package that won't work with Debian and
this requires small mods to things like kernel-package, the kernel source,
and the boot floppies. I know I'll be using it here, but there's no sense
in maintaining a useless package.
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> GnuPG key 1024D/DCF9DAB3
Debian GNU/Linux (http://www.debian.org/) 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC
The QuakeForge Project (http://quakeforge.net/) 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3
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