On 11/14/05, Magnus Eriksson <magetoo@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Nov 2005, Andy Ruhl wrote:
>
> > On 11/12/05, Rick Kelly <rmk@toad.rmkhome.com> wrote:
>
> >> Are there any online lists of modern, shipping hardware that works wit=
h
> >> NetBSD i386/amd64?
> >>
> >> For instance, http://www.netbsd.org/Hardware/pci.html, seems to be mos=
tly
> >> ancient hardware that isn't sold anymore.
>
> [...]
>
> > I agree the supported hardware list is out of date, but it's also
> > almost too difficult to maintain unless all the device driver authors
> > make a list of what hardware is supported by that driver. Then it
> > becomes even more complicated when you need to match chipsets to
> > actual retail device models, which can change even with the same model
> > number (Linksys version numbers come to mind).
>
>    But is there really any alternative to having it updated?  That list i=
s
> one of the first things you'll see, and if people are considering their
> options, having a big list of mostly obsolete hardware won't exactly make
> people go "wow".
>
>    Perhaps a wiki-based approach?  It would be enough (I believe) adding =
a
> link to a wiki page that people are free to edit, and periodically
> updating the (official) supported hardware list from the wiki.  Enough to
> make a big difference in the impression of NetBSD, that is.
>
>    It would also be somewhere you could post your success stories, it
> wouldn't be much more work than typing up the email to say "I finally got
> it working".  Lowering the barrier.
>
>
>    I only run ancient hardware myself, so perhaps someone else can tell i=
f
> it might work.
>
>   (There isn't even an official wiki, is there?)

There's no Wiki that I'm aware of, and that's a whole can of worms in
itself. It might be a good idea as long as it doesn't get unruly.

The best place to know if something is supported is the mailing lists.
I do make a point of posting a dmesg to the mailing lists or
describing a piece of hardware that worked for me, if possible. If
everyone did that, it would be really nice. As a matter of fact, it
would be really nice to have a mailing list just for making devices
work, whether they are built in or add on. Something like
netbsd-devices, netbsd-peripherials, whatever. Most devices don't need
to be platform specific so that's a place where everyone could get
together and discuss devices.

Andy