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Jonathan Roberts wrote: >On Thu, 2006-12-07 at 10:50 +0000, Matthew Cremore wrote: > > >>What would help here IMO is a Hardware Compatibility List which would show all >>items of hardware along with the expected level of functionality gained by using >>free and proprietary drivers. Then we'd all be able to choose the right piece of >>kit according to our needs and hopefully use free drivers. >>This would also have the effect of users (ie customers) carefully selecting >>hardware according to availability of free drivers, thereby reducing sales of >>hardware with only proprietary or lesser functioning free drivers. This in turn >>could persuade hardware manufacturers (Nvidia etc.) to open up their proprietary >>drivers to the community in order to get their sales back. >>This would of course need the support of the community but would benefit us all >>in the end. >>(Excuse me if this already exists somewhere but if it does it needs more >>publicity!) >> >>Just my thoughts... >> >>Cheers, >>Matt. >> >> >> > >There are some, but none of them are particularly authorative! This is >one example: > >http://www.phoronix.com/lch/ > >I agree though, a detailed list that was fairly complete would help a >lot! > >Jon > > > > GNU have released a (live) distro of linux. Its basically ubuntu/debian with all the proprietary firmware "blobs" stripped out. The idea I think (but is not made clear on the site documentation) is that you try the live distro on you hardware and report any hardware that doesnt work (presumably because it needs the proprietary firmware or no driver has been created yet). This can be reported back to GNU so that they can build a more accurate picture of what hardware works with totally free drivers, which can be obscured by proprietary firmware / drivers included in some/most/all distros. This will be very useful in the future for securing better totally free drivers. For those interested ...... http://www.gnewsense.org/ Tom. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html