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Supported Device List Suggestion for Arca Noae

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Martin Iturbide:
Hi.

I have this idea/suggestion for Arca Noae since they are doing the hard driver development on this platform.

Why don't create a "very short" and dynamic list of "approved hardware" that can change once a year, but something that is very short and limited, not big lists of hardware support, just one or two of each kind. I will call it "THE LIST" (joke) because people likes branding.(/joke).

For example, (this is just an example, I don't want to discuss Wifi cards or other specific hardware on this thread, I'm putting this device only as example-I don't have this card and I don't know if it is good or bad, I just noticed that is shipped on newer Thinkpads). Arca Noae gets a new device (that is no more than three years old) like the "Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 7265NGW (NGFF)Card 802.11ac", which is easy to get on ebay ($25) and other places, for his developer David (and maybe others). They make it work with their drivers and "approve" that this hardware works with the Arca Noae's driver package their are offering and put it on "THE LIST".

So it will not mean that the "Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 7265NGW (NGFF)Card 802.11ac" is the only device supported by the driver, since many other can run other supported hardware with the same driver, but it will mean this card is a device that is being use and held by Arca Noae's developer for the current year, and will make it a good suggestion for someone that wants to change its wifi card to select this one. (while it stays on THE LIST).

The idea about this list is:
- "THE LIST" will be short, so it does not became a big task to maintain it.
- New Hardware. The focus is not having a long list, it is to have new hardware on it .
- Arca Noae will update the list according to their will, since hardware is changing fast and sometimes it is very hard to maintain the legacy.
- It does not mean that only this hardware works with the drivers, it mean that Arca Noae uses this hardware for testing and on his developers.

Maybe they can add "THE LIST" to the "OS/2 & eCS drivers and software package" product information. Since it is a product made of drivers, it will be logical to know which hardware is supported.

Like I told this is only an idea.

Regards

Dave Yeo:
In theory it's a very good idea and could even just be a list of which Hardware David uses for testing during development.
Problem is often there are several revisions of hardware with identical names and appear to be the same card. Things like firmware and even individual chips can vary so when purchasing  the dual wireless card, it is hard to say if it is actually the same one.

Doug Bissett:
I agree with Dave. In theory, it is a good idea, but when you get down to the details, it becomes a nightmare to try to support it. You can find the same device in different parts of the world, with different drivers. You can find the same driver used in different devices. You will find that the "same" device will suddenly change the chip, and will use a different driver. Laptops don't always have the same hardware, even though they are the same brand and model.

Arcae Noae, as with Mensys, cannot say that device X will always work, because the manufacturers don't always make them the same. Some manufacturers (Intel, and Broadcom, for instance) seem to be pretty consistent, in that the same driver supports a number of devices, but if the specific device isn't in the supported list, the driver may refuse to load. Other manufacturers (Realtek) tend to need different drivers for each device that they manufacture, even though they have the same description.

Then, you run into the problem where some manufacturer (Lenovo, for instance), says that device X, and device Y can be used in one of their laptops. There is no good reason why device Z won't work, but you need to modify the BIOS (which invalidates the warranty) to make the BIOS accept device Z.

There is no good answer, and Linux has the same problems, but they have enough programmers to work through it. If Arca Noae can find a good way to port drivers, the problem should lessen, but it will probably never be solved completely.

Arca Noae could, and probably should, post the exact devices that they work with, but that would always be an incomplete list, and it could be wrong if the manufacturer changes something.

Martin Iturbide:
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I think that there is a phrase that says "when you dream, dream big", but this it not a big dream, this is a small one. The issue of having "the same device, with different chipsets and with different drivers " that will complicate this idea ( "THE LIST" ), only applies when you are planning to have huge list of supported devices. On this case I'm only suggesting to have like two of each one, so it can be very pinpointed and limited to specific devices that are available with a well define chipset.

Like you said Doug, some manufacturers seems to be pretty consistent, so the idea is to have "THE LIST" may only apply to those. Sadly is not what everybody wants, because we want "<putyourfavoritebrandhere>" device to be supported, but it can not be possible right now. But the idea is to have some list of new devices that are supported, that when the user asks "which new wireless card should I buy?", we can have a formal response of a new device that can be bought on the market.

I think that "THE LIST" will be better than nothing. I prefer to have that problem (the same device, with different chipsets) than having nothing at all.

Regards

Martin Iturbide:
But I agree with you both "Arca Noae could, and probably should, post the exact devices that they work with." Even with a disclaimer that says "AS IS" without warranty that it will work :)

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