hwd - excellent tool

pixel · 2005-05-01 15:03:44

Does anyone know when if ever hwd is going to be part of "base cd" install?
Sometimes when you don't know the name of kernel module for NIC it's rather hard to set up a network, that means i can't do pacman -Sy hwd
to check the name of the module. IMHO hwd should be part of the base cd and maybe even included in the arch setup script to ease the identification of
kernel module for NIC. Is it going to be included in 0.8?

Stinky · 2005-05-01 15:53:45

I agree. I was surprised they didn't include it on the .7 cd. I generally have to make sure I have a knoppix cd with me when I go to set up a pc or laptop. Just in case I don't know offhand what modules to use. Kind of a pain sometimes.

viniosity · 2005-05-01 16:07:08

No poll option here, but my vote is also to include it in 0.8 whenever that's released. It'll also make it a lot easier to write docs with this tool available by default.

sweiss · 2005-05-01 16:51:51

Doesn't seem to take much space either. I'm all for including it on the base cd, but not for automating the /etc/rc.conf setup. rc.conf is a core file and new users should know about its existence.

CyberTron · 2005-05-01 16:52:04

maybe have it included in the installer so that you may configure your rc.conf directly and completly

and I agree that it is a great tool

DarkPath · 2005-05-01 16:58:24

I agree, this should be included with the base install in the next rolling-release of Arch.

While "The Arch Way" says:

# Relying on GUIs to build/use your system is just going to hurt a user in the end. At some point in time a user will need to know all that some GUIs hide.
# Sooner or later you will have to find the information on the web and usenet (if man is not enough). Learning how and where to find it on the net should be the first thing to learn for a newbie.

Really, the only confliction I can see is that hwd has the ability to auto-gen a X server config file. However, providing a tool for easy lookup of hardware modules for everything detected in the system is great. I know, for me at least, I wasn't sure what module was needed for my network card to start with... and until I actually gave hwd a chance, I had NO idea what modules some of the things in my system use. To be fair, I didn't need to know what module my IDE bridge or my CardBus bridge used to get a working system... but it's REALLY helpfull if I'm about to config a new kernel because I know exactly what I'll need. For me, this is tougher than most because my main computer is a laptop. You don't quite have the amount of information you do with desktops as far as your hardware goes; my guess is because you're not about to swap out hardware for most things in you laptop, let alone replace the motherboard.

My point is that hwd/lshwd are GREAT tools to use to get your system configured properly and do it fast. It's particularly useful if you were, for example, installing Arch on a system you've never seen before, as you would have almost no idea what hardware is in it. Also, you don't HAVE to have hwd generate an X config file... in fact, you need to pass switches for it to even do that. I know it would have helped me configure my system, and I'm sure it'd help other people. Looking online to find specifics about your hardware is definatly a learning experience, but having a quick tool to tell you all you need to know speficially about your system... it's almost cruel not to have it in the base install. Besides, how often are you going to be using a tool like hwd besides when you're working on installation/configuration?

pixel · 2005-05-01 21:20:35

DarkPath wrote:

It's particularly useful if you were, for example, installing Arch on a system you've never seen before, as you would have almost no idea what hardware is in it.

Exactly!
I can have the base system up and running in 5-10 minutes on any machine. hwd would speed up the process of setting up NIC, sound etc. as sometimes i need to research the exact names of kernel modules. It should be included in the installer. I hope that one of the Arch devs will read it.

phrakture · 2005-05-01 21:24:21

I have removed an arguement from this post in an effort to make it more constructive. I thank you all for staying on topic... enjoy it.

And yes, hwd rocks, though I use lshwd alot more.

rasat · 2005-05-01 23:25:58

DarkPath wrote:

While "The Arch Way" says:
# Relying on GUIs to build/use your system is just going to hurt a user in the end. At some point in time a user will need to know all that some GUIs hide.
Really, the only confliction I can see is that hwd has the ability to auto-gen a X server config file.

... I am aware of this conflict. Tool "xorgcfg - textmode" does a good job configuring X but twice I didn't managed to config a laptop. In my opinion, X is the most frustrating issue if not manually able to do the configure, so I included the auto-gen option.

pixel · 2005-05-09 16:20:28

ok, just added it as a feature request to bugtracker.

pixel · 2005-06-04 10:19:31

Judd was nice enough to implement my idea to put lshwd into the "base" system. I think this is really excellent news people!

http://www.archlinux.org/packages.php?id=6704

Thank you, Judd.

pixel · 2005-06-04 23:45:23

and now when lshwd is in base it should be easy to implement AUTOMATIC hardware detection at boot time, something like discover in Debian - just
run lshwd in rc.sysinit before loading kernel modules and then append the results to rc.conf. Should work like a charm..

CyberTron · 2005-06-04 23:49:49

can please post an example of how that would look like? (not that I really need it, but it would be fun to learn how to do it )

pixel · 2005-06-05 00:06:25

CyberTron, i realized it will even work when you just put lshwd -a somewhere in your boot scripts (rc.sysinit or rc.local) as this option checks the hardware and automatically modprobes the modules. If you want only a specific module to be automatically loaded (for example NIC module) you need to play with grep and sed.

EDIT: If you want everything to be working smoothly you need to put it in rs.sysinit after depmod and before ifconfig.

CyberTron · 2005-06-05 00:09:07

nice

I will try it out

neotuli · 2005-06-05 01:20:28

Well making it all automatic would go against The Arch Way (tm) quite a bit. But I've made this argument before, so I'll just leave it at that.

CyberTron · 2005-06-05 08:10:32

true!

but atleast now there is a choice

i3839 · 2005-06-05 10:44:19

Hotplug is automatic too, and I've heard no one complain about it except that it's too slow.

CyberTron · 2005-06-05 10:47:02

i3839 wrote:

Hotplug is automatic too, and I've heard no one complain about it except that it's too slow.

yes i agree, i for one does not use hotplug, but now when lshwd might work instead of hotplug might consider it because it is an easy way to detect your modules (and get info about the computer) in a fast , archlinux, way

dust · 2005-06-05 20:10:31

I'd understand the argument if it was something like a wizard to set this up, but you're still doing the initial config yourself in the rc file. So you know how it got there and why it was setup that way, and if you know that much than its hardly an issue to do man hwd or man lshwd to use the tools manually incase something goes wrong. This is akin to just setting up a daemon for yourself. I mean no one complains about having daemons start up automatically and having them do their tasks on their own.

Arch Linux

#1 2005-05-01 15:03:44

hwd - excellent tool

#2 2005-05-01 15:53:45

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#3 2005-05-01 16:07:08

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#4 2005-05-01 16:51:51

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#5 2005-05-01 16:52:04

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#6 2005-05-01 16:58:24

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#7 2005-05-01 21:20:35

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#8 2005-05-01 21:24:21

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#9 2005-05-01 23:25:58

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#10 2005-05-09 16:20:28

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#11 2005-06-04 10:19:31

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#12 2005-06-04 23:45:23

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#13 2005-06-04 23:49:49

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#14 2005-06-05 00:06:25

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#15 2005-06-05 00:09:07

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#16 2005-06-05 01:20:28

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#17 2005-06-05 08:10:32

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#18 2005-06-05 10:44:19

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#19 2005-06-05 10:47:02

Re: hwd - excellent tool

#20 2005-06-05 20:10:31

Re: hwd - excellent tool

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