On Sun, Jun 22, 2003 at 01:07:21AM +1200, cr wrote: > On Saturday 21 June 2003 21:55, Alex Malinovich wrote: > > And, just so I can join in the foray of the auto-detect flame-fest here, > > if a user doesn't know his hardware well enough to be able to pick it > > from a list he shouldn't be installing an OS in the first place. > > Errr, *wrong*. Much of my gear is second-hand, and of course the first > thing the original owners invariably do is lose the manuals. :( My > current motherboard is the first one I've ever had a manual for, ditto my S3 > VGA card, and I've *never* owned any monitor of a brand that's been listed in > the 'X' config options. Take the lid off, write down all the type numbers, product codes, serial numbers even, off all the cards, disk drives etc, and the type numbers off the large ICs. Do the same for the numbers on the back of the monitor; if there aren't any take that apart too and write down anything written on the circuit board. FCC IDs can be useful too. If in doubt, write down everything. Then type the numbers into Google until you get some hits that seem to relate to what you actually saw when you took the lid off. It may be a bit laborious, but it works, and it can even break the obfuscation of the real manufacturer that is a problem with eg. secondhand Compaq parts. Autodetection? Pah. Most of my experience of the above procedure has been in getting Windoze machines working. -- Pigeon Be kind to pigeons Get my GPG key here: http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x21C61F7F
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