"Give me a list of what the Linux community is seeking as far as hardware support and I'll see if I can get some bodies working on it. With a convincing email or two and we should be able to get it done"
I don't know about a convincing email or two, but I have the following wish lists as far as hardware support:
1. Open standards and API's so that others can write drivers even if the manufacturer doesn't. Competition in almost anything is a good thing, and a manufacturer with an open, published API may well find that they get a lot of help on their drivers from the open community. And since such help is gratis, that's a great thing for *any* hardware manufacturer. Besides, it ensures that anyone with enough time/money/commitment can write or create a driver for any operating system as long as the hardware itself continues to function. This should be a "win" for the hardware maker too... it does not only benefit the users!
2. Emerging technologies. USB hot-swapping and overall support, APM and ACPI power management, dynamically-adjustable CPU frequencies and attributes, FireWire, and others are sore spots today. More support in these areas could make the average user's life an order of magnitude easier. Better hardware *detection and identification* would make this yet another joy.
3. At least some specific support for Linux. Printer manufacturers should provide some info to the CUPS project, monitor manufacturers should send full specs to XFree86 and Xorg as well as a few distributors (Red Hat, SuSe, Debian ought to cover it). Sound card people should talk to the ALSA project. From there those parties would ensure the information spread properly (even to competing projects!). This is very, very low-cost and low-effort but can bring a remarkable benefit to the manufacturer in increased sales.
4. Work with OEM's (from IBM, Toshiba, Dell, HP down to small clone manufacturers) to enable more companies to PRELOAD Linux on new computers sold. The huge majority of Windows users get their Windows preinstalled and do not ever reinstall it except from a "nuke your hard drive and reimage" CD that was included. Linux could do just as well, and the user would not have to worry about most of the issues that come up regularly on installation (just like they don't worry about those issues on Windows). Besides, preloading is the way that most people first encounter Windows and is a great way to cut down MS revenue while increasing market share.
Just my two bits here, hope it's useful.
Cheers,
-- Rodolfo J. Paiz rpaiz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.simpaticus.com
