Proposal: More info about unsupported and/or non-free drivers

[Eric Feliksik]

Oliver Grawert wrote:
> hi,
> On Fr, 2005-06-17 at 10:27 +0200, Eric Feliksik wrote:
> 
>>As hardware is auto-detected in Ubuntu, could it be possible to also 
>>detect which hardware will not work properly? This can be registered 
>>then and for example the default firefox page can include a (dynamically 
>>generated) text on which hardware will probably not work, and what there 
>>possibilities are to get it to work.
>>
>>The information for this should be pulled out of a database that is 
>>centrally maintained and regularly updated, like on the wiki, but more 
>>structured.
>>
>>Along with this a note could go to the user about the reasons for 
>>missing hardware support and the problems of binary drivers and 
>>undisclosed specifications.
> 
> you should have a look at:
> http://udu.wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareDatabaseRoadmap
> 
> ;)
> 
> ciao
> 	oli
> 

That's nice, but the impression I have is that the goal of the Database 
is to give the developers a good understanding of what hardware people 
use, which works, which does not. That's great.

But does it also provide a system to give information to users? To tell 
them why certain things won't work, what the chances are to get it to 
work with manual intervention, and what the problems are of non-free 
drivers and undisclosed specifications?