[indiana-discuss] Proposal for Hardware Driver Detection Project (HDD)

[Glynn Foster]

Hey,

Calum Benson wrote:
> Interesting... it sounds like HDDtool does some of the things that the  
> UIRB (Sun's internal UI review board) said they would have liked  
> SDDTool to do when it was running on Solaris :)
> 
> Do the two projects share any code, or have a similar GUI? Did you  
> ever consider combining the two applications into one?  It sounds like  
> there's quite a bit of overlap, from a user experience perspective:

One is written in Java, the other in Python. I think if merged HDD into SDD, I 
think we'd lose some of the obvious benefits of writing it in Python (good 
native look and feel in Solaris, easier possibility of linking it into IPS, 
light weight package content for the LiveCD).

> * SDDTool: scan machine (probably not running OpenSolaris), see list  
> of supported devices, optionally download drivers from website,  
> optionally report configuration to Sun HCL

You'd probably care more about what *doesn't* work wouldn't you? And then 
optionally register that piece of hardware with Sun to give an indication that 
they may want to consider writing software to support it.

> * HDDTool: scan machine (running OpenSolaris), see list of supported  
> devices, optionally install drivers from IPS, report configuration to  
> OpenSolaris community

The long term goal is including all useful drivers onto the LiveCD to get a 
fully working system. That may not be always practical. The benefit, compared to 
SDD, is actually submitting the hardware that *does* work - allowing others in 
the community to quickly check (through some web based interface, rather than 
necessarily download) that a particular piece of hardware or generic system is 
supported.

> So it sounds like they at least ought to share a common look and feel...

Yeah - I can see arguments both for and against.


Glynn