Bill Yan wrote: > Frank Ludolph ?????????: > >> >> zhongyuan sun - Sun Microsystems - Beijing China wrote: >> >>> Hi Frank, >>> >>> Thanks, This is more clear to me! >>> >>> One think I want to clarify is the *possibility* of the "Driver" Column, >>> So far we have IPS/SVR4/DUimage, what about third-party driver which >>> only release source code? can we put "Source Code" in the "Driver" >>> Column and set the website URL in the "Info" column? >> I think not source, at least in the "missing drivers" view. The booted >> system wouldn't be able to download and build. Maybe in the regular >> DDU panel. >> >>> Also what about >>> other exceptions? when neither of the IPS/SVR4/DUimage/Source code type >>> were found, can we put "Missing driver" in the driver column? >>> >> Please don't put "Missing driver" in the driver column. Ideally the >> column would be empty when first opened and driver names would appear >> when the driver has been loaded - makes it easy to distinguish which >> drivers are missing/loaded. I decided to put the third-party links >> there because it seemed reasonable even though it makes missing >> drivers harder to find - the column isn't blank - but didn't want to >> add another column. >> >> Frank > > Hi Frank, > > Currently the URL for the third party driver in the driver db usually > point to a webpage, not the actual package file. And in the URL there > may be several drivers for customer to download. For example, the > URL(http://homepage2.nifty.com/mrym3/taiyodo/eng/) contains many NIC > drivers. It's difficult for user to choose which driver to download if > user doesn't know the name of missing driver. So it's better to figure > out a way to provide the name of missing driver on GUI and not to > confuse the user at the same time. > > Another approach is we update the dirver db, so the URL for the third > party dirver will point to a actual package file. In this way, user > wouldn't need to know the name of missing driver. But after discussion, > we feel it's not quite feasible. This is because the link to the actual > pakcage file may become broken or out of date if new version of the > driver comes out. It is also difficult for us to maintain the driver db > as there are hundreds third party drivers out there, and we wouldn't > know when those drivers will be updated. >
This argument doesn't really make sense. The database already has URL's that require maintenance, and the number of drivers and sources can only be assumed to grow, so do we not already have a mechanism for maintaining it? If we're going to provide this information at all, then it needs to be maintainable whether one link or two is provided, and providing direct package links doesn't seem to significantly affect the scope of the problem. Dave
