On Wed, 2009-09-09 at 14:34 +0530, Mayank wrote:
Thanks for the support. Just to state my concerns here is an e.g. I've a Dell Server with 631xESB/632xESB/3100 Chipset UHCI USB Controller. Now upon looking up on http://kmuto.jp/debian/hcl I found that it was not supported. So if I was to look out for support for this device on a Linux kernel, then how am I supposed to go about the problem. And like this there are several other devices like PCI Express to PCI X Bridge, LPC bridge etc. for which I am unable to verify availability of support. So how do I go about finding support for these hardware components ? And yet another question would be "Are these components really critical for normal server operations ?"
Well, At times the commertial companies for their commertial reasons don't announce support for a certain device or even an entire chipset. I had this experience with asus 945 motherboard. When I called the fokes the streight away told me "linux won't work on our boards " but I was suggested by ronny, one of our lug members to use that board and by words! it worked absolutely fine!. I needed to put one commertial driver for the high resolution display but that too was easily available. Even when that driver was not used the board worked perfectly on 3 machines (thanks ronny). This was against what the Asus guys told me. So what is the moral or the story?
As for seeking support from third party is concerned, that won't be possible because in that case I'd rather opt for RedHat or Suse which already provide support for their products. Sorry to disappoint anyone if this statement did so :)
I don't think that will really disappoint any one because no one would want another distro war on the list :).
happy hacking. Krishnakant.