On Wed, 2009-09-09 at 15:34 +0530, Mayank wrote:

> Thanks Steve and Krishnakumar for sharing your thoughts.
>
> @Steve
>
> 1. What I'd mentioned was a USB Controller and not a USB device and thus I
> think it does not fall under USB device category.
>
> 2. Thanks for providing link for http://www.ubuntuhcl.org. This is the kind
> of list I was looking out for.
>
> 3. You made a point that if hardware is supported by a particular kernel
> then it doesn't matter which distribution we choose. Does that mean, if a
> vendor claims that their server is compatible with say Redhat Enterprise
> Linux 4.0, and I find of kernel version for RHEL 4.0 and install a Debian
> Linux with same kernel version than everything should work out of the box as
> happened in case of RHEL 4.0 ?
>
> Thanks and regards,
> Mayank

Mayank,
You raised a very good question.
Look, there are different distros because the makers of those distros
have slightly different thought process going when they build one.

So even though a kernel supports a certain device, it may happen that a
certain distro is not using that kernel version.  Even more even a
slight change in the last digits of the kernel version might mean a lot.
Over and above this, some distros will provide extra non-free (as in
freedom) but still free of cost drivers which are not actually the part
of the core kernel.
I am saying this in context or a few distros.  So if your distro does
not have that driver by default it may just imply that you will have to
download it and compile it your self.
Secondly, I think you must do a good test run if your server by keeping
steves instructions in mind.  There might be some non-essential
components of your hardware and its always better to disable the kernel
support for such devices.
If you are having any experience of kernel compilation then you can
download the kernel source for your distro and do a make menuconfig and
then look at what all is available in the menu.

Hope this helps.

Happy hacking.
Krishnakant.



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