Re: list o' importants

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

In message <1b429287.359e5dcc@aol.com>, eamorical@aol.com writes:
>Need enlightenment on os support for I/O devices.
>Requires device driver plus support for connection type
>such as serial port, parallel port (EPP/EPC), USB,P1394
>What else is there?
>
>What about support for DVD, AGP, QPA, ACPI, PIIx4, PIIx6?
>
>(Windows98 has support for DVD, USB, ACPI, 1394 and AGP)
>
>Ultra ATA/33, ATA/66, SCSI-3, serial SCSI FC-AL, SSA, FCL
>
>Memory PC100 SDRAM, ECC, RDRAM (Rambus)
>
>Chip sets Intel BX, GX, NX, EX       VIA MVP3
>
>???
>
>Bob

Ugh.

Do we really need to get into this level of detail for an end-user
survey? I kind of hope that "it supports my hardware" is sufficient.

While it's true that that doesn't answer the question as thoroughly
as we might want (because it doesn't specify what the user's hardware
actually is), I think it's as much as we need. I don't want the person
filling out the survey to have to dig through manuals to type in
acronyms that they don't understand. And they'll be wrong most of the
time too if they do that -- my motherboard manual has a whole page on
how my USB connector works, but I don't use my USB.

I think this might be appropriate material for a hardware survey,
but not an end-user operating system survey. Most of that stuff is
hardware-level and not OS-level anyway, like ECC support.

And btw, you left out all the Intel socket 7 chipsets. :)

--Roger