list advice

[Net Llama!]

On Wed, 10 Jan 2007, Tony Alfrey wrote:
> I'm thinking about creating a webpage which would be a list of systems
> (hardware) and distros that together form a foolproof Linux system.  In
> other words, it would state, essentially,
>
> "My box consists of these parts.  I installed Distro X on this system
> and it works *out of the box* with no tweaking, additions or magic".
>
> Why would I do such a thing?  Because my premise is that if a Linux box
> were like a Mac, then more people would use them.  One component of a
> Mac is that they are absolutely free of hassle, and the other component
> is that the Mac GUI is gorgeous.  Linux apps still have a way to go, but
> there are clearly some combinations of hardware/distro that are
> bullet-proof.

I don't buy that argument at all.  A Mac is a complete package, which 
starts with brilliant marketing.  Even if everything just worked perfectly 
out of the box, it wouldn't ever hope to compete with the marketing genius 
of Apple.  Apple's strength really isn't the OS/firmware or the hardware 
that they're choosing.  Its the marketing.  If it were just the hardware 
then you could throw any OS on Apple HW and have the same great 
experience.  We've already seen screenshots of a BSOD on an Intel Mac, and 
a quick review of the Linux-PPC mailing list will quickly show you what a 
complete nightmare it is to run Linux on a Mac.

> So I need to think about how to quantify/organize such a listing.  The
> (obvious) question is "what makes a system"?  Clearly, for towers, we
> need a motherboard/CPU, video card, hard disk/disk buss, sound card,
> network card, DVD burner, wireless card/router.  Laptops, having less
> adjustability, usually exist as bricks purchased as complete entities.
> But often, the correct video card in a laptop can make all the difference.
>
> This would not be a hardware-compatibility list, it is a complete
> system-compatibility list (full hardware listing plus distro).
>
> So do any of you have thoughts about additional things I should add to
> said list of hardware components and comments on the structure and what
> might constitute "works out of the box"?  Should I include things like
> price and vendor?  How about the e-mail address of the contributor?

This is a lofty goal, and ultimately, I don't think its going to pan out. 
For starters, just because HW config #1 works great for Mr. Foo doesn't 
really guaranetee that its going to work great for Mr. Bar.  Vastly 
different usage patterns on the same HW can expose problems/bugs.  The 
unfortunate reality, from someone who's seen it first hand, is that unless 
a company has the resources to actually fully QA a hardware platform, its 
going to be a nightmare when set loose on consumers.  There are way too 
many usage scenarios out there for anyone to guarentee anything based on 
the feedback of one or even ten people.  And dont' even get me started on 
how this would be pointless for Gentoo (or any other distro where all the 
components can change all too easily) where one system will never match 
any other.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman                        netllama at linux-sxs.org
LlamaLand				http://netllama.linux-sxs.org