On 10/21/07, Philippe Anel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yes, Brad Smith did it ... and he did a great thing, but the question is how > worth it is to do the same boring work when you can buy a fully documented > and working hardware for less than $40 ?
My point was not to say, "Hey, they did it, so can we." My point was to say, "Check out the nightmare they went through building this particular driver without documentation." I think many folks are asking about the Broadcom because that's the most prevalent integrated NIC now. Buy nearly any Dell and you'll find one. Laptop users are screwed in general because they have limited alternatives on both the wired and the wireless fronts anymore. So, though it's nice to say buy something that works (and I agree), the ongoing struggle is the Chipset of the Week. If you look at the archives, ten years ago it was the integrated SCSI Chipset of the Week, five years ago it was wireless, now it's the Broadcom. Newbies have an expectation, even with non-commercial software now, that they can take a random box, pop in a CD, and if they have any problems it's likely that their display looks like crap and they can't print (think Linux or Vista). What might be helpful for our newbies is to say something like hey, a Dell GX1 through GX260 should work off the shelf, or an HP/Compaq models L through X but not V, no Sonys, whatever. Give everyone some arbitrary measure so when they're eyeballing a workstation at the store or in the garage or wherever they don't have to boot it to find out what the integrated chipset is and whether or not it's supported. The wiki used to do a better job in this regard, but the problem is a wooden boat. Too many models, user pool is too small, vendors change their chipsets with their underwear. But, users tend to have just two questions in this arena: will this work with my hardware, or what should I buy/find to work with Plan 9? It would probably be easiest to just say it up front: "Will Plan 9 work with my hardware?" "Probably not all of it. But, your mind only works with 10% of your brain, so it's not a big deal." "What hardware should I buy to work with Plan 9?" "...NIC: Intel PRO/100 or PRO/1000..." "Hey, I have that already!" "You just saved $40." -Jack
