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View Full Version : Does Linux Certified hardware exist?



dyssident
July 20th, 2006, 04:27 AM
is there any such thing as Linux certified hardware? more specifically, are there any organizations that test hardware for Linux compatablility.

it seems like creating a certification program would be so easy to set up. get together some good systems guys. come up with a point by point testing sheet for each class of device. setup up a bunch of boxes, all running different distros. charge manufacturor reasonable price to certify their stuff. connect hardware once recieved. do tests.

and if certification fails, charge them another reasonable fee to patch whatever needs fixing.

am i crazy here?

GuitarHero
July 20th, 2006, 04:36 AM
There's stuff in the wiki about that.

dyssident
July 20th, 2006, 04:45 AM
Ive found two links to testing that Canonical is doing or attempting to do

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TestingServerHardware

but what im curious about is if there is an independent organization, not affiliated with any single distro, that does certification based on manufacturer request. kind of like the whole "windows certified" thing

RAV TUX
July 20th, 2006, 05:11 AM
Ive found two links to testing that Canonical is doing or attempting to do

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TestingServerHardware

but what im curious about is if there is an independent organization, not affiliated with any single distro, that does certification based on manufacturer request. kind of like the whole "windows certified" thing

http://www.open-hardware.org/

brentoboy
July 20th, 2006, 05:24 AM
are there any organizations that test hardware for Linux compatablility.

Yeah, I think that is what the kernel developers do all day long. Except, once they find an incompatibility, they just modify the kernel so that it works with that piece of hardware.

I say that half joking,
but...
in an open source world, if you are going to spend the time to make a list of issues for a particular piece of hardware... you are pretty close to fixing them already. So any organization that did all that work would probably end up being kernel contributors and do more fixing than certifying (or blacklisting).

dyssident
July 20th, 2006, 06:01 AM
http://www.open-hardware.org/


interesting link, but it looks like that project died in july 2002. thats when their last news and mail list posting is dated. i think they had the right idea: some reliable way, ie. a 'brand', to know instantly if a given piece of hardware will work with your distro.



Yeah, I think that is what the kernel developers do all day long.


point well taken, but if im standing in my local hardware store, ive got no idea what the current state of development is. if im buying online i want to do as little digging as possible to find out what will work. my mom would not be able to dig though wiki pages to figure out if the video card she wants to buy me will work.

woedend
July 20th, 2006, 06:02 AM
linksys used to be...(Even open sourced maybe, dont remember) but for some reason I think that changed recently.