Re: Debian hardware support and enablement for newer devices (was ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux)
On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 10:03 PM Hector Oron wrote:
> There are more companies expecting better hardware support, this issue
> is not limited to Lenovo, they are willing to pay consultancy time
> and/or sponsor Debian events, however on volunteer premises, it has
> been really hard to provide adequate support for them, companies would
> like to have quick turn around fixes, while Debian takes ages to land
> something and/or to backport those changes to stable (which is the
> installer advertised at our debian.org website). There is a workaround
> by creating a consultancy and pay Debian developers, a la Debian LTS,
> but that has been at least controversial and, to my knowledge, no
> general solution has been provided.
There was the etch-and-a-half initiative a while ago, where backports
of hardware support packages (Linux, xorg drivers) were added to
stable itself. Users had to opt-in to some of the updates.
https://wiki.debian.org/EtchAndAHalf
There are many existing consultancies that could do this work, some of
them listed on the website. Some resources for companies wanting to
hire folks to work on Debian & FLOSS stuff in general:
https://www.debian.org/consultants/
https://lists.debian.org/debian-consultants/
https://lists.debian.org/debian-jobs/
https://www.fossjobs.net/
https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
> As a project, how can we improve the current entry level to new
> companies wanting support for their devices?
Is the backports archive not sufficient for this? I see it doesn't
contain mesa backports at this point and probably other hardware
enablement, but that could be fixed.
The alternative option of backporting entire drivers and hardware
subsystems to old versions of Linux doesn't seem like it would be a
useful use of developer time to me.
--
bye,
pabs
https://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise
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