[CentOS-devel] possibility of an extra-hardware-support SIG

Hi Fabian,

I think some of this might be getting into specifics - my aim was just to really 
see if there is any interest level in this kind of work. However, all the issues 
raised are important so lets discuss them at this stage.

Fabian Arrotin wrote:
>> - Find and coordinate the efforts by various hardware vendors to support CentOS
> If the HW manufacturer lists RHEL as supported, the driver/module they
> provide should be supported on CentOS as well ... Do you mean that these
> manufacturers list CentOS itself as supported ?

That would be a good thing, if we can get ( like we did with 3ware ) to list 
CentOS as being supported directly, it increases the confidence level of users 
with that specific hardware. Also, that would give us the potential to push for 
centosplus kernel support as well ( which is almost non existent at the moment ).

>> - Create, test and publish a mechanism to follow kernel updates ( might need 
>> someone to actually have access to some of this hardware, but it should be 
>> manageable specially if we can get the attention of hardware vendors ).
> in kmod format i suppose ?

if we need to, yes - otherwise start with the dd.img and follow with 
weak-updates. You dont always need to update drivers with a new kernel version 
on centos :)

actually, to be completely honest, I dont care - if people prefer dkms or kmdl, 
we should have support for those as well. Setting up an automated system to 
hammer these out is trivial. I already have something functional, with a bit of 
clean up that can be made into a generic setup we can all use and a process that 
can be audited by vendors is also easy to implement. This takes away the amount 
of work they need to do themselves, lowers the bar of entry and actually 
increases the consistency of the drivers out there.

> I think it's a good idea and i can join the effort ... 

excellent!

> For example i have to setup IBM SANs and the multipath driver is
> delivered as source (which is a good thing on one hand) but who has make
> and gcc on a server ? ...  :o)

is this driver gpl / open source ?

> This make me think to the license point of view : can every
> driver/module be packaged ? This has to be taken in account ...

If people are putting out drivers that are not open source friendly, then we can 
only do some docs on making it easier for users to use them. beyond that there 
is little that can be done.

-- 
Karanbir Singh : http://www.karan.org/ : 2522219 at icq