On 07/27/2011 11:46 AM, Chris Tooley wrote:
> On 11-07-27 10:25 AM, Yasha Karant wrote:
>> I have found that modern CUPS printer support configuration tools under
>> EL have a fairly complete data base of the drivers/parameters needed for
>> vendor specific printers.
>> To some extent, this seems to include even reverse engineered data for
>> printers for which the vendor will not provide any detailed public
>> specifications and only provides proprietary "drivers" to the monopoly
>> (and sometimes, Apple).
>>
>> Given various comments and suggestions that have appeared concerning the
>> proper Linux formatting/partitioning and use of some current SATA hard
>> drives that no longer present the 512 byte standard to the operating
>> system, could SL (or RH or something equivalent to the CUPS team or ...)
>> provide a data base for drives similar to the CUPS one for printers?
>> For example, during the initial installation of either a new drive or a
>> new major release of the OS (e.g., going from EL 5 to EL 6), the drive
>> partitioning/formatting utility would recognize the drive(s) in use and
>> automatically set either acceptable or "optimal" parameters.
>>
>> If such a data base exists, relevant URLs and/or RPMs would be
>> appreciated.
>>
>> Yasha Karant
>
> This may be a suggestion that would be more pertinent to the upstream
> vendor, as I understand it SL doesn't actually do any development to
> modify or add to the EL base upon which SL is built. :)
>
> If it's already been done, I haven't heard about it - that's not to say
> it doesn't exist though ;)
>
> -Chris


My understanding is that "CUPS is the standards-based, open source 
printing system developed by Apple Inc. for Mac OS® X and other 
UNIX®-like operating systems" quoted from http://www.cups.org/  .

Thus, CUPS is from a .org, not from a vendor, or even an 
academic/government entity such as Fermilab or CERN.  Hence, although SL 
and even RH would not the establishing body, it is appropriate for SL, 
not just RH, to spearhead such an initiative for another appropriate 
.org entity .   If Fermilab/CERN have sufficient resources, they could 
develop such a data base for use with gparted or other open source 
non-volatile storage (e.g., disk) subsystems.

Yasha