hw requirements

[Matthew Garrett]

On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 03:40:27PM -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> Matthias Clasen (mclasen at redhat.com) said: 
> > I've added a section about hw requirements to the spec. It is a bit
> > vague atm. Can we (and should we) make it more precise ?
> 
> 'suitable graphics and display resolutions'.
> 
> I would suggest at least:
> - a graphics adapter with a KMS-capable driver

That rules out supporting systems using the binary nvidia or AMD driver, 
which is something I can certainly get behind but may not be what people 
are aiming for. For instance, new hardware might be supported by the 
nvidia driver but not by nouveau - in that case the system will boot 
with efifb (not KMS capable) and then the user might install the binary 
nvidia driver. Is that a supported hardware configuration?

> - a graphics adapter or adapter + CPU combo that supports <unspecified>
>   level of 3D rendering performance
> 
> I believe this is a line we would draw in terms of what is
> supported/recommended, but I don't know how you would write this in a
> meaningful way that this could be applied.

ajax almost certainly has opinions as to where the bar should be drawn 
here.

> - 1024x768 resolution (or 1024x600?)
> 
> Too conservative?

Is anyone shipping anything below 1366x768 now? Probably worth checking 
what the requirements for the Windows hardware certification are.

> - Input
> 
> Do we require at least one PS/2 or USB input device, or will we work with
> bluetooth-only or touchscreen-only devices?

Where devices support the hid boot protocol over Bluetooth, and where we 
can deal with the handover between the firmware and a real driver, I 
think we should certainly aim to support that. We've talked about making 
efforts to support Apple hardware, and a lot of that tends to be 
bluetooth-only. Touchscreen-only sounds trickier.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59 at srcf.ucam.org