[HN Gopher] Linux Hardware Database
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       Linux Hardware Database
        
       Author : auraham
       Score  : 86 points
       Date   : 2022-04-13 13:20 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (linux-hardware.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (linux-hardware.org)
        
       | peterfield wrote:
       | Great tool - it even shaved 4 years of my thinkpad :)
       | https://i.imgur.com/HdRVr5i.png
        
       | freedomben wrote:
       | If you're in the market for a Linux computer, this is a great
       | resource for making sure your hardware is compatible.
       | 
       | If you're already running Linux, this is a super easy way to
       | contribute info about the hardware you have to help others [1].
       | For many distros it's already in the repos. For example Fedora:
       | sudo dnf install -y hw-probe
       | 
       | Run the hardware probe/report and store it locally in
       | `/root/HW_PROBE/LATEST/hw.info/` (no upload)
       | sudo -E hw-probe -all
       | 
       | Run the hardware probe/report and upload it (uses privacy
       | preserving techniques)[2]:                   sudo -E hw-probe
       | -all -upload
       | 
       | [1]: https://linux-hardware.org/?view=howto
       | 
       | [2]: https://linux-hardware.org/?view=howto See section "Privacy"
        
         | aidenn0 wrote:
         | TIL dnf has replaced yum, which replaced urpmi, which wrapped
         | rpm.
         | 
         | I swear, every time I use a RPM based distro, there is a new
         | package manager.
        
           | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
           | https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Fedora-3.
           | ..
           | 
           | > While during these crazy times it feels like Fedora
           | transitioned from Yum to DNF yesterday, it's already been a
           | half-decade since the DNF package manager has been the
           | default on Fedora. Next year with Fedora 38 they are looking
           | at further evolving package management by way of MicroDNF.
           | 
           | https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/MajorUpgradeOfMicrodn.
           | ..
        
           | protomikron wrote:
           | To be fair, dnf replaced yum for quite some time now. However
           | yum is still recognized as a command (but symlinks to dnf).
        
             | Georgelemental wrote:
             | DNF is itself being replaced: https://fedoraproject.org/wik
             | i/Changes/MajorUpgradeOfMicrodn...
        
         | buscoquadnary wrote:
         | Thanks for the advice, just uploaded stats on my Ubuntu 20.04
         | machine.
        
       | LukeShu wrote:
       | If you're a nutjob like me who runs Linux-libre instead of the
       | normal Linux kernel, you'll be interested in checking the h-node
       | database. https://www.h-node.org/
        
       | josteink wrote:
       | I see OpenWRT not listed as an available distro.
       | 
       | That's going to quite significantly limit the amount of available
       | HW, no?
       | 
       | Is that intentional? If so, why?
        
       | mdp2021 wrote:
       | It's amazing. Level of gratefulness up to the stars.
       | 
       | Would not the "Find computer" tables benefit from a column
       | "OS/Kernel" near the "Probes", especially when the probe is just
       | one? If you want to check how an OS or a kernel fares with a
       | model, you would not want to open them all.
        
       | teddyh wrote:
       | There used to be a site at https://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl/ which
       | simply took the output from "lspci -n" and gave you a list of
       | what the names of kernel modules were to load to support that
       | hardware, together, IIRC, with what version of Linux was
       | required. The site was full of user-contributed data from all
       | sorts of devices which you could browse. Sadly, the page no
       | longer exists.
        
       | merlinscholz wrote:
       | Why would you test all Ubuntu desktop environments separate?
       | Shouldn't the hardware support be the same?
       | 
       | Shouldn't the hardware support be the same in a given kernel
       | version?
        
         | jeroenhd wrote:
         | I've had instability issues with specific GNOME or KDE releases
         | in combination with certain drivers (notably, you guessed it,
         | written by NVIDIA) so at least Ubuntu vs Kubuntu matters. My
         | laptop's touchpad only supports proper gestures with Wayland,
         | which means disabling the NVIDIA drivers (or waiting for the
         | next holy grail of GPU drivers, the current ones aren't the
         | promised holy grail yet on laptops) is required for me to get
         | the touchpad working. Because I value the ability to attach an
         | external screen, I've instead switched back to X11, which means
         | no gestures and therefore only partial touchpad functionality.
         | 
         | I don't know how much the other versions of Ubuntu differ, they
         | all seem relatively minimal in comparison.
        
         | noselasd wrote:
         | While kernel support is the first step, userland applications
         | need to take advantage of the hardware for it to be useful.
         | 
         | e.g desktop envoronments need to care for how it interacts with
         | touchpads, you want your wireless interface to actually be
         | configurable. You want sane handling of which audio device is
         | the default, and you'd want recognicable names to select them.
         | The list goes on for another mile.
        
       | kgeist wrote:
       | Russian is the second most popular language and the majority of
       | top cities are in Russia. I wonder whether it reflects the real
       | situation or the site is somewhat biased towards Russia for some
       | reason.
        
         | michaelmrose wrote:
         | Well either Linux is incredibly popular in Russia or ROSA
         | desktop a Russian distro is almost certainly over represented
         | at 8.6% share. It might do to check if anyone installs hw-probe
         | by default or promotes it to its user base.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Sounds like ROSA probably includes it by default; maybe with
           | a "send your hardware stats in" button.
           | 
           | I think I've seen something like that with Ubuntu but I
           | assume it would go to Canonical only.
        
       | jeffbee wrote:
       | The selection bias here must be pretty intense, if they are
       | showing Apple with a 10% share of the install base and the
       | MacBook Core 2 Duo from 2006 as the most common model.
        
         | mhitza wrote:
         | If you look at the bottom graph on this page https://linux-
         | hardware.org/?view=cpu_family interestingly Core 2 Duo doubled
         | in data representation solely this year.
        
           | jeffbee wrote:
           | Wacky. It's great that Linux extends the useful life of such
           | machines, though.
        
       | optymizer wrote:
       | I clicked around a bit, but can't understand how would this
       | inform my decision of purchasing a part that's compatible with
       | Linux.
       | 
       | Say I search for a laptop graphics card model and find that 4000
       | people are using it in their builds. That only tells me that it's
       | minimally functional, not that it actually works at full
       | features.
       | 
       | For example, it could be the that the video drivers for that card
       | don't support[ 3d acceleration for Linux and people are just fine
       | without it because they don't play games anyway. This info is
       | missing.
       | 
       | Basically, I'd think a qualitative approach would be more useful
       | than quantitative approach. I want to know that the thing I buy
       | is going to work properly, not that I was suckered into buying
       | something along with 1000 other people.
       | 
       | To give a real example this time, the Wi-Fi card I bought works
       | fine under Windows, but the Broadcom drivers available in the
       | Ubuntu distro didn't work properly at the time, so I had to go
       | the old route of finding drivers that worked and then recompile
       | the kernel modules on every kernel update. It got rather annoying
       | fast. Linux Hardware Database would mark me as a user of this
       | card (which would be correct), but it falsely implies that it's
       | worth buying, which I think it isn't.
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | I see some little (i) on "works" on some of mine from my
         | report, so perhaps it's more for negative reporting about
         | things that don't work well? Who knows; you never find out
         | about all the issues with any hardware until after you buy it.
        
           | auraham wrote:
           | I have seen those (i) too on WiFi cards. After checking it, I
           | think it means that such WiFi cards only work with some
           | distros. For example [1], it does not work with Ubuntu 20.04
           | but it does work with Ubuntu 21.04.
           | 
           | [1] http://linux-hardware.org/?id=pci:8086-2725-8086-0024
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | Distros losing support for hardware makes me sad.
        
         | arein3 wrote:
         | Good point, when planning to run linux on a laptop better get a
         | one with an amd gpu and intel wifi (or ethernet)
         | 
         | Although that combination seems strange, because seems like an
         | intel wifi chip would be present only on an intel cpu
         | motherboard, and intel cpus are usually paired with nvidia gpu
         | 
         | Is there a wifi chip with good drivers for amd laptops?
        
       | awinter-py wrote:
       | data collection yes, but there's also a need to crowdfund
       | hardware support
       | 
       | this affects oss wifi router OSes, linux on laptops +
       | chromebooks, cell phones, gadgetbridge for fitness trackers,
       | probably many iot devices
       | 
       | in the chromebook linux space gallium seems to have lost momentum
       | (the most recent device with full support is from 2018, or 2017
       | from a well known manufacturer). if you want to run linux on a
       | pixelbook there are stale forks of stale repos, but like 'alsa
       | doesn't work yet' and support doesn't get merged to the kernel
       | 
       | committers are always complaining 'we don't have test hardware
       | for this device' (and also they're uncompensated)
       | 
       | we should as a community find a way to fund this work. can be
       | hardware donations, paying competent volunteers, and eventually
       | working with hardware vendors directly to answer questions / do
       | signed firmware builds if necessary
        
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       (page generated 2022-04-13 23:01 UTC)