Online Repository for Hardware Configurations?

Great_Jehovah asks: "I've done a lot of trial-and-error and spent time researching getting various devices (e.g. motherboards, USB devices, DVD burners) working on Linux. I've also spent a bunch of time configuring different pieces of software for particular applications. I would like a nice centralized place to share these pieces of knowledge and also to see what others have done. I've looked on Google but either I can't conjure the right keywords, or this place just doesn't exist yet. Anyone know where such a site exists? If not, I'll start one."

Comments

Re:Right here..

[Asprin]

Do you want people to take Linux seriously as an alternative to Windows for anything beyond Apache and Sendmail? Everyone starts at zero for everything, so I'm not sure why it's a bad idea to learn from configs that have been done and redone a zillion times already. I'm also not saying that the work is finished when the script is installed, either -- there's loads of tweaking and tuning to be done later -- but if you give new users a ledge to start from, it's an easier climb for them.

Re:Right here..

[Wakko Warner]

Everyone starts at zero for everything, so I'm not sure why it's a bad idea to learn from configs that have been done and redone a zillion times already.

It's a bad idea because you're teaching people to learn by rote memorization and coincidence, while giving them no real insight as to why or how any configuration option works the way it does, or what other desirable options may exist. Most well-written man pages should have example usage anyway, and most large software packages (sendmail, samba, BIND, apache, postfix, etc.) have sample config files.

Fooling inexperienced admins into believing that Linux is friendly and easy to use and can be picked up quickly by even novice users is disingenuous and ignores the real problem. Linux in reality is the same as any other UNIX: quirky, complicated, difficult to learn, and (in Linux's case especially) very poorly documented. Throwing new users a bone in the form of a few pre-built config files is hardly enough to combat what I see as a very grave shortcoming that is probably mostly to blame for Linux's slow desktop uptake. Linux simply needs more uniform, intuitive, helpful, and complete documentation (in the form of succinct, well-written, browsable, searchable manual pages, please.)

There's no need to further dilute the sysadmin talent pool by filling it with people who think they know Linux when all they really know is how to install a pre-fabbed config file. I wouldn't trust a system built in such a way and I certainly wouldn't hire someone who professed to be a Linux administrator, even for a junior role, if those were the only skills they possessed.

- A.P.