On Wed, 2010-04-21 at 13:58 -0400, David Zeuthen wrote:
I've spent a little time looking at the hardware side of things and done a basic patch for some of the hardware stuff based on the current rawhide comps file. I've broken it down into network/server/misc for the time being and pushed the print stuff over to its group. More can be done as it was a quick look through. The old hardware-support currently includes all the other groups so there's no real change for current builds overall.
This looks like a good start. I think the way this kind of thing should work in general is that the system detects if you have the hardware, and dynamically installs support for it. We'd need some database mapping things like USB ids to packages. Networking is an exception; we should include as many drivers/tools for networking-related functionality as possible so that the system can be bootstrapped.
Basically: if you have a GPS chip, gypsy gets installed and runs. If you don't, it doesn't.
Don't take this mail the wrong way, but I strongly object to something like that. It is a departure from how things currently work e.g. we install all drivers/software/etc for any gizmo you may or may not plug in.
We don't do anything like this at present. There are all sorts of packages which are useful only to some specific piece of hardware which we do not install by default. Off the top of my head I can think of synce (for manipulating Windows Mobile phones), barry (for Blackberries) and Concordance (for handling Logitech remote controls). The list is probably endless. Right now we more or less install most of what you need for the things we sort of consider integral bits of the system, but certainly not for peripherals.