Helping a newbie list or troubleshoot their hardware

[Colin McGregor]

--- Sy Ali <sy1234-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> In order to expedite a person's installation and
> troubleshooting, I'm
> wondering how we can have them learn about their
> particular setup.
> 
> * Learn if they meet minimum system requirements
> * Learn if they may have hardware which isn't so
> Linux-friendly
> * Provide a simple list of their hardware
> information
> * Optionally provide a more complex breakdown of
> their hardware
> information - to be sent to an advanced person for
> troubleshooting.

Not quite what you are after, but something I would
START with is the latest version of Knoppix (a live
CD, just pop the CD into a machine, tell it to boot
from CD and wait).

The hardware detection system in Knoppix is excellent
(not perfect, but close), If a device runs under
Knoppix it runs under Linux (though you may run into
some series grief with some other distros.). If it
doesn't run under Knoppix, then while you MIGHT be
able to get it running under some other Linux distros,
you should assume at the very least your looking at a
LOT of pain...

Standard Linux tools are available under Knoppix for
hardware listing/checking are available under Knoppix
(ie: hwinfo, lspci, etc...)

In other words as a quick and dirty it will / will not
test of hardware, Knoppix is a great choice...

Colin McGregor

> I'm not sure if such stuff is easy or is already
> done, so I'm going to
> ramble on for a little bit.
> 
> 
> Is there a Linux + Windows program which can scan
> hardware and:
> 
> * compare it to an already-provided configuration
> file and just tell
> the person "yes you're ok" or "no, you only have x
> memory" ?
> 
> * view a local database or preferably connect with
> an online Linux
> compatible database and just tell the user "all your
> hardware is
> awesome" or "some people had problems with the video
> card you have,
> here are some links and here are links to your own
> distro's docs on
> that hardware..." ?
> 
> after having installed Linux:
> 
> * send their list of hardware to the linux
> compatible database
> alongside their comments - i.e. to be able to easily
> update the
> database with "hey, all my hardware seems to work -
> mouse, keyboard,
> screen, nic, motherboard, video for non-3d, etc"
> 
> Or also, is there a program which can take their
> list of hardware and
> perform specific tests to see if it all works? -
> i.e. if it sees a
> webcam, it'll do some v4l magic and get them to test
> it quickly, and
> then just fire off that report.
> 
> 
> The real goal would be to have such functionality on
> a tiny LiveCD and
> on a distro LiveCD either within the live distro
> itself or as its own
> menu item like how memcheck86 or rescue distros are
> provided on many
> liveCDs.
> 
> How lofty is this dream?

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