On 07/27/2011 09:32 PM, Chris Tooley wrote:
> On 11-07-27 12:01 PM, Yasha Karant wrote:
>> 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
>
> True, however, Redhat has more resources with regards to development of new software (people who are extremely familiar with linux architecture, at least) 
> than SL.
>
> I'm not trying to say that you *shouldn't* suggest this stuff to the SL list, just that it would be more *likely* to get implemented if suggested to RH - or 
> perhaps even a large server HDD vendor such as Seagate(unlikely) or Intel(SSDs, right? Also they do a lot of work in the kernel).  Not to mention that the 
> rate of uptake in the rest of the Linux community would be greater if supported by a larger vendor.
>
> As I understand SL's structure, they have about 3 people who are dedicated to implementing a RH-branding free EL for the scientific community so they "reduce 
> duplicated effort of the labs, and have a common install base for the various experimenters".  If there are people developing for SL - it's most likely for 
> software to do with scientific applications which run *on* SL - for instance, ROOT.  I think it's out of scope for the SL maintainers to spearhead a software 
> initiative... My interpretation could be wrong though, anyone from SL care to correct me on that?

You are absolutely right.

Urs