hardware detection on i386
I haven't done an install on Debian for about 4 years now.
I recently played with a few other distriibutions and was impressed with
their ability to do hardware detection auth-magically for me.
I'm trying to get some feedback on how well Debian performs at being able
to detect (and configure) hardware thats on the existing system. Right
now I don't care if this is on -stable or -unstable or wherever.
I would be nice if it was in the sarge disk-install project, but I'm
trying to be more open-minded then that.
Is there something that might be available post-install to clean up the
rough edges?
Specific areas that I'm concerned with are:
cd-rw devices
xconfiguration
And before anyone gets into a discussion about how to do this under the
current installation method (using debian 3.0/2.2 methods) please bear in
mind that I'm not asking how to do it. I've done it many times in the
past.
Rather I'm asking if the method of doing it has changed in the non-stable
branches or is likely to change in the coming releases.
And now for my sob story:
I tried Suse 8.2 for about 2 months now and have come to the conclusion
that it makes a really excellent desktop installation. Providing you
don't attempt to do anything they didn't anticipate or pre-define for you.
This is a double edge sword -- you are up and running more than ever
before in an hour, but it takes days (if ever) to get anything else
running.
I also found that much of the software that I was concerned with (it's my
itch, OK?) was seriously out of date under SuSE 8.2 compared to my
installation of Debian (stable/testing). Which I find ironic since
everyone gripes about how ancient Debian is.
For my needs and from my experiences, Debian makes for a better
mission-critical server than does SuSE. As for the desktop it can be well
argued that once configured it doesn't really change (and hence no need
for really cool hdwe detection tools).
But I'm very curious if the hardware detection/configuration process has
made any headway.
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