Re: drivers DB and id/ info registration

["Richard B. Johnson" <root@chaos.analogic.com>]

On Wed, 26 May 2004, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

> On Wed, 2004-05-26 at 21:35, Wouter Verhelst wrote:
> > Op wo 26-05-2004, om 12:07 schreef Zenaan Harkness:
> > > I develop widget X.
> > >
> > > I contact microsoft and have X incorporated into windows.
> >
> > Rotfl.
>
> OK, bad assumption.
>
> The only reason I say that is that so many devices work
> "seamlessly" with MSW*
>
>  - recently I read a review on the X-Arcade retro joystick
> controllers (those heavy "for cabinets and MAME" things).
> The reviewer just plugged it in and Windows literally popped
> up with a dialog telling the "end user recognizable" name of
> the device.
>
>  - a year or so back, my brother bought a "blue eye" USB
> external 2.5" HDD (really nice looking thing) and on his
> XP box it auto added a new drive (E: or whatever). Seamless.
>
> So how come devices tend to just plug and play when
> used with Windows (USB HDDs, audi cards, logitec gear)?
>
> Will a "visible"/ centralized location where manufacturers
> can submit info on their devices (for free software kernels)
> help to get us closer to the "front line" of device support?
>
> thanks
> zen

M$ has a whole division dedicated to plug-and-pray developers.
When their USB disk, camera, or whatever gets "approved", its
name is put into W$ even without installing any "drivers".
That's why W$ is so large. It would be good if somebody
started to do something like that for Linux, perhaps a
database from which configuration stuff could be extracted.
It's not a kernel issue, so some distribution really should
take it up.

Of course, the work needs to be done correctly so you don't
get the M$ problem of; "Everything was working until I installed
my new printer...." Whereupon you install everything from a
newly-formatted hard-disk, all over again, installing the
new printer first!


Cheers,
Dick Johnson
Penguin : Linux version 2.4.26 on an i686 machine (5570.56 BogoMips).
            Note 96.31% of all statistics are fiction.