Hardware in Linux

Guides

• Linux device numbers

Archos Jukebox

• Installation history

IDE

• Harddrives (local)
• Hardware vs. software RAID (discussion list)

JogShuttle

• Get Sony Jog/Shuttle or Contour ShuttlePro (review) USB controllers for kino
  Prices ($90) -- get it from Jandr.

Laptop

• Linux compatible laptops
• Linux-Thinkpad mailing list
  
• See Sigillo, the vpr matrix 200A5 laptop
• Installing Debian 3.0 on a Dell Inspiron 8200 laptop: http://rain.prohosting.com/qmatrix1/DebianDell8200/
• Linux laptops on Slashdot -- http://slashdot.org/articles/02/07/18/191238.shtml?tid=137
• Linux on Laptops -- http://www.linux-laptop.net/
• Laptops preloaded with the distro of your choice -- https://www.qlitech.net/configure/laptop.php
• Linux Laptop discussion list http://www.pairlist.net/pipermail/linux-laptop/
• Power management
  

Nomad Jukebox

• http://www.df.lth.se/~triad/krad/gnomad/
  
• http://libnjb.sourceforge.net/
  
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/kionjb/

PDA

• iPAQ (local)

Printer

• Printer history, including configuring CUPS

Scanner

• SnapScan 1212U

Sound

• Sound
• Sound on Sigillo
  
• See also Audacity, XMMS, RealPlayer

System

• Monarch sells the new Opterons -- great deal (the Ultimate Linux Box)
  
• QliTech sell dual Athlons -- check them out at http://www.qlilinux.com/index.html Consider getting the ASUS A7M266D from them -- this is what Alan Cox is running. It may transcode realtime with two 2.1GHz processors. With 4GB of memory it's about 2.6k, which you can easily afford.
• See review of the board at http://www.lostcircuits.com/motherboard/amd_mpx/11.shtml with some possibly helpful configuration hints, including overclocking. They note that the board has only 3 normal PCI slots (plus some 66MHz) and no onboard LAN, so the Tyan MPX is more expandable.

Telephone

• Mobile phones
  

TV cards

• TV capture
  
• Digital Video Archive (MythTV )
  

USB Wireless Laser Pointer Mouse

• http://lasermice.com/ -- get it from CompUSA, part #296091
• http://www.acomdata.com/scripts/products-showdetails.asp?id=66
  

Video

• AIW Radeon 8500 (local)
• nVidia, nVidia TV-out
  
• Webcam (local)
• Repairing a LCD backlight (Dec 05)
• Multiple video cards in one machine: With PCI express, all slots are functionally equal. The only thing that varies is how many lanes go to each slot. This hardware change makes it easy to build systems with multiple, high performance video cards. PCIe support chips are planned that can allow up to sixteen video cards in a single system. source
  

Hardware detection

On 18 January 2003 I tested out a couple of hardware detection programs, but didn't pursue this very seriously and ended up unistalling them. Here is the history.

"Install discover, read-edid and mdetect before you install X, and you're set."

On 18 January 2003 I installed read-edid, made by <branden@debian.org>, who also maintains the XFree packages (or at least ports the new ones).

Description: hardware information-gathering tool for VESA PnP monitors read-edid consists of two tools;

get-edid uses a VESA VBE 2 interrupt service routine request to read a 128 byte EDID version 1 structure from your graphics card, which retrieves this information from the monitor via the Data Display Channel (DDC).

parse-edid parses this data structure and outputs data about the monitor suitable for inclusion into an XF86Config file.
.
get-edid uses real-mode x86 instructions to communicate with the video hardware; therefore, it is usable only by root, and this package is only available for the i386 architecture.

On 18 January 2003 I installed discover, a hardware detection system, and let it take over management of the CD ROM devices and mount points.

Setting up discover (1.5-1.4) ...
Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/discover ...
/etc/rcS.d/S36discover -> ../init.d/discover
Detecting hardware: i82365 natsemi trident usb-uhci

After installing discover, the Archos wasn't being recognized, sometimes the mouse failed, so I removed it. Didn't investigate if there really was a relationship. Also took out read-edid, which claimed I hadn't installed it.