From Fedoraproject

[edit] Smolt Ideas / Wishlist

• Have the website let me know which hardware is fixable. if I show it isn't working, then let me know if others with the same hardware have it working. If I click on the link, the Wiki page could tell me how many people are using this (or similar if possible) hardware and how many are working) Perhaps this will let me know what they did to fix (new kernel?) it or a contact point to figure out how to get it working.
• Allow me to store my e-mail so when someone gets something working that I have given up on I can be notified.
• Have the common name on the Wiki hardware page (right now the link is more meaningful to me than the description of the page I end up on)
• Create a Windows version of smolt, and encourage users to submit their configuration (possibly through some social news website - digg or reddit anyone?). [Are you thinking to identify hardware we don't know about? I can see having a read-only version for Windows that allows potential users to check their compatibility]
• Versions for Ubuntu and OpenSuse:
  • There are already Ubuntu .debs created, so a link from the smolt page would be great.
    • That ubuntu version doesn't seem to connect to the server (out of date?)
• Inclusion in the operating system's install process. For example, the Fedora project should run it as part of the "firstboot" program. This will result in better data, as it will have a more accurate sample (all users, as opposed to the ones that went to the small effort of installing smolt). Users should, of course, be given the opportunity to "opt out".
• Show PCI subvendor/subdevice name on main system page as well (it's how people will more likely know these cards)
• Option to automatically get device name from pci.ids file (or, not optional, just do it?)
• Link PCI devices to pages for vendor/device, with subsections for each subvendor/subdevice? (or maybe not...)
• Proxy support in configuration file or from environment
• Only allow system owner to rate system components and update configuration
• Ubuntu has a nice hardware tester app, it would be nice to hook that up to the smolt database to track hardware that works - not directly smolt related I know but for the large ecosystem around hardware testing and QA it would be very useful. [and autolaunch this app on first launch/upgrade of OS to increase survey results... does a new release fix hardware]
• SSE Version/or Architecture supported features for that particular processor: this enables software vendors to decide which architectures to target their software to... Some Architecture features seemed to be captured in /proc/cpuinfo - others may be more difficult to find
• The Socket/Core/Logical Thread #
• Look forward for smolt merger with counter.li.org .. that should benefit for stronger reproresentaton of number of Linux users & devices in use, for statastics and compatibility.
• Gather (more) filesystem & storage information (partitioning, HD/CD vendor/model... S.M.A.R.T. data?) [ Certainly grab HD/CD models but do not grab partition data or any other information that could be considered private - if it isn't for rating compatibility dont take it]
• Gather a stat indicating whether SELinux is in enforcing, permissive or disabled mode to help stop (or at least reduce) the contant mailing list "SELinux is dumb/great" threads
• Gather (allow user to enter) Motherboard (and other?) information, rather than or in addition to System/Vendor information. For example, I have an "ASUS" (Vendor) "K8N-DL" (Model) motherboard (in an otherwise homebrew system, so no specific System/Vendor). Actually, just capturing homebrew vs OTC (commercial "over the counter") might be interesting.
• Plugin architecture - could allow plugins like "smolt-FOO" to report more detailed statistics on FOO hardware/usage/configuration/whatnot to FOO.org's smoon, on an entirely opt-in basis for those who would like to assist project FOO.
• Consolidate quasi-duplicate system vendor strings into a single result. e.g. Dell Inc., Dell Computer Corporation, Dell Inc, -> Dell.
• Gather raw hex Monitor EDID data from Xorg.0.log or xrandr --prop. Omit monitor serial number in result.
• Autosubmit config monthly (mentioned in firstboot?)
• Add information about the country, to get demografic statistics
• Work closer with other distros, to ensure to get Smolt integrated on most distros by default [I second this...]
• Wow... checked out the sample - he described having to fix the MMC but the rating is 'works out of box'. Plus other adjustments that would seem more hardware specific were on the system page. What kind of checks can be put place to ensure accurate rating? Can the System page be built dynamically with information from the hardware page (even if you list all hardware devices to be visible under edit mode, and comments added under the device appear on the device page and he system page)
• PLEASE JOIN EFFORTS AND INTEGRATE SMOLT WITH THE LINUX COUNTER, preparing precompiled packages for all main distros. No statistic will be ever really useful if it reflects data from a single Linux group only. If smolt and Linux Counter's machine-update script will come pre-packaged (in .rpm, .deb, etc.), making their installation really easy and automatic, we will see a meteoric rise of the number of registered Linux users. This is good for Linux "marketing" too...
• Smolt is an invaluable tool for driver developers because it gives detailed informations about hardware (identification, hardware data, etc.). Please include smolt in as many distros as possible, especially on Live CDs, in order to win the "drivers battle" with Windows. For example, if a hardware sales assistant has a smolt-enabled LiveCD in his pocket, he can quickly test hardware Linux compatibility and report hardware detailed data about 100 different desktops & laptops he has on the shelf...
• Please make the hardware data smolt reports as detailed as possible - for example, the output of "lspci -vvv" is very useful.

[edit] Other ideas

• Perhaps link hardware database with various bug tracking systems so we can see posted issues with hardware and/or volunteer to be testers/regression testers of fixes.