Hardware specific Thread Section

[wolfton]

I would like to see a hardware specific section.

I propose the following tree:
___|___Custom Built Systems
___|___|___Desktops
___|___|___Laptops
___|
___|___Pre-Built Systems
___|___|___|___Sony Vaio
___|___|___|
___|___|___|___Dell Optiplex
___|___|
___|___|___Laptops
___|___|___|___Avertec
___|___|___|___|___AV 3715-KD1
___|___|___|___|___|
___|___|___|___|___|___Knoppix 5.1.0 Boot Hangs due to DHCP
___|___|___|___|___|___Backgrounding error.
___|___|___|___|___|
___|___|___|___|___|___Fedora Core 6 hangs while starting X
___|___|___|___|___|
___|___|___|___|___|___Mandriva Free 2007 sound died after package
___|___|___|___|___|___updates
___|___|___|___|___|
___|___|___|___|___|___DSL (Demi Small Linux or Damn Small Linux) hangs
___|___|___|___|___|___at boot on DHCP
___|___|___|___|___|
___|___|___|___|___|___Wireless Driver Issues (rt2500)
___|___|___|___|___|
___|___|___|___|___|___3D Rendering not available on S3 Unichrome Pro
___|___|___|___|___|___IGP (K8M800)

I am sure that this will help users like me, and if searching in everyone's favorite search engines for information like this could increase traffic to this site, then I beleive it would be a good thing.

[wolfton]

Thirteen views and not a single one of you posted?

[oz]

This idea doesn't seem very practical to me but that doesn't matter because Core Wizard is the only one with the powers needed to add/remove forums.

[techieMoe]

I don't see this as very practical.

[wolfton]

I don't see this as very practical.

Would you mind explaining why it doesn't seem practical? There is a similar section in the Unofficial Averatec Forums, but not every vendor has forums like this. I suppose it would be ideal that each vendor would have a forum like this and then they would have an extensive section on hardware, to include Linux-ready driver binaries and sources, but then Linux users are so varied on their hardware choices that there wouldn't be any way for the linux community to share ideas and source code for drivers that would work on other vendors' machines as well.

Perhaps, instead of by machine vendor, they could be arranged by product type, like "Wireless Adapter" and then by threads such as "rt2500"...

[techieMoe]

Would you mind explaining why it doesn't seem practical?

I see it as impractical to create a new forum for every conceivable model of every PC vendor out there. Who would maintain the sections and make sure they reflected the currently-available models? How long would a model stay in the forum before being considered obselete? Would we remove old models or leave them there, creating an enormous section of the forum with a handful of threads in it?

Having too many sections also just serves to facilitate duplicate threads. We already have enough problems on these forums with people asking the same questions ("How do I get XXX program working?") in different parts of the forum. This would make it infinitely harder for people to find help, or to even find out if their question has already been answered. It's a nightmare for the moderators and the users.

Perhaps, instead of by machine vendor, they could be arranged by product type, like "Wireless Adapter" and then by threads such as "rt2500"...

We already have a "Wireless Internet" section and users are encouraged to list their device information either in the title or the body of the post. I don't see this as being much more useful. Also, we run into the same problems as listing the PCs by vendor. How do we maintain the various parts for various models of cards? Also, what about folks who don't know right off the bat what chipset their computer uses? Keep in mind that LinuxForums is an all-volunteer operation. I just don't think we have the manpower to administer something of that magnitude. I also don't believe it would be of great enough benefit to the overall userbase to warrant bringing on new people.

Don't get me wrong; I don't mean to dismiss your idea entirely. I just don't think it's feasible in the form you're suggesting.

[oz]

I would like to see a hardware specific section.

We have a "hardware specific" section in place already:

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/peripherals-hardware/

We just don't have a specific hardware section and it's doubtful in my opinion that Core Wizard will implement such a section for the reasons outlined by techieMoe.