PnP support?

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

People were arguing back and forth earlier about whether our install
system should use PnP detection or not. I don't know much about the
current hardware detection/probing that we're planning; I do know that
I want the seul installer to figure out as much as possible about the
hardware of the system it's on.

Does anybody have actual facts on PnP?

--Roger

(post from linux-kernel)

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 18:29:28 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: Linux-2.1.92 - Feature Freeze 

On Fri, 3 Apr 1998, Horst von Brand wrote:
> 
> > No, but Alan is looking into some minimal PnP support. I discussed this
> > at some length with him, and the way I would have preferred it done he
> > didn't think we could do in time for 2.2, so we'll have some very simple
> > groundwork but not a "real" PnP thing.
> 
> Is this really wise? The moment 2.2 comes out, people will be screaming for
> PnP support, and it will have to be integrated into the _stable_ kernel.
> And there goes my wish for 2.2: 2.2.4 at most ;-)

It really is wise.

The MicroSoft PnP standard is truly a really _bad_ standard. I refuse to
have that kind of setup in my kernel - the whole point with Linux it to
have an operating system that is _better_ than the crud MS keeps throwing
out. 

Have you noticed how well Linux autodetects hardware even _without_ any PR
sticker that says "PnP" on it? PnP is just a marketing term. We need some
very minimal support to avoid trampling on some IO ranges etc, but we
don't want anything more than the minimal requirements, because we aren't
going to make the same silly mistakes MS does. 

                Linus