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Idea #9196: Start An Official Ubuntu Online Driver Resource

Written by auryn21 the 28 May 08 at 19:10. Category: Hardware support. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: New
Rationale
Have an online resource such as 'drivers.ubuntu.com' where users can submit,vote or comment on drivers that they've used to make their hardware work properly. This would negate having to search through multiple forums to find help on getting a particular compenent to work. You can search for drivers by manufacturer, device type etc, then download and install by following install directions or tips from previous users.

Check http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/drivers/ or driverguide.com or windrivers.com for ideas or examples of how this would work.
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Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #9196
Written by auryn21 the 28 May 08 at 19:10.
Ubuntu Brainstorm was updated in January 2009. Since the idea #9196 was submitted before this update, its rationale and solution are not separated. Please vote accordingly, and if you have the necessary rights, please separate the rationale from the solution. Thanks!

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glotz wrote on the 28 May 08 at 20:37
There's something like that here http://www.ubuntuhcl.org/

oniltonmaciel wrote on the 29 May 08 at 00:19
Wow! Didn't know about that site, I've been thinking about this idea for while..... Great iniciative... but....

The truth is that the idea is to start an *Official* Ubuntu Online Driver Resource.

I don't thing ubuntuhcl is supported by Canonical, and it don't even have ubuntu look and feel. Maybe if it were a little more simple and easier on the eyes like launchpad...

I think a website like that should be well promoted and strong supported by canonical, so everyone would know about it and get information from it about drivers, how ubuntu goes with that specific laptop or PC, how to solve certain problems, and things like that. Knowing the site people would also feed the site with information. The information would be in one place. Faster and easier to search and get it. And to update!

And later maybe ubuntu could have a help program using this tool.... Imagine the possibilities..

The wiki does a good job, but this is something new, like a wiki, but better. All about collaboration and social!

And maybe everyone should have their's profile with picture, contributions, doubts, and answers.

Something near Yahoo answers, quite different from launchpad answers, but a lot better than Yahoo answers because it would be more like a wiki. Maybe it would seems more like posting in a blog/twitter than editing a wiki. But the principles and ideas of collaboration in a wiki would still be there! Something that every user could be able to use/edit/help.

I strongly support this idea!

And willing to help in anything I can.




oniltonmaciel wrote on the 29 May 08 at 00:25
And to not scary people who make blogs about ubuntu tips, we could provide tools for them to post solutions/tips on the site but still associated with their site, providing links, feeds, or maybe a lot better thing that nobody have thought about yet..

mp3phish wrote on the 29 May 08 at 01:29
this idea is a duplicate but you might not realize it yet. The idea for a better hwdb (hardware database) is actually where this functionality will be implemented.

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/40/

Basically, users will run a program on their machine and it will detect their hardware, report back to the database, and show user ratings, comments, tips, tricks, and driver links for that hardware. All user contributed mostly.

For a sneak peak of the vision, check out the dohickey client which has most of this functionality, and just needs more users realy:

http://www.dohickey-project.com/client/screenshots.shtml
https://launchpad.net/dohickey
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=391081

mp3phish wrote on the 29 May 08 at 01:32
oh, and see here

http://www.dohickey-project.com/cgi-bin/hardware/browse.pl

leonaibaho wrote on the 9 Jun 08 at 11:06
i totally agree. And further than that, let's make an offical drivers repository. A centralized data pool, that contain lots of driver. An can be used by every linux distibution. So, there will be no more drivers compability problem that all this time has been one "minus" problem using linux. Instead, it can be one advantage to linux, so that user do not need to use driver's CD to install hardware manually. It will be great!

andersja wrote on the 8 Jul 08 at 17:01
Dohickey looks great - I will install it straight away. See also my idea (which could be merged with / use dohickey: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/8538/


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