smolt, hardware compatibility and package stats

[Christopher Blizzard]

On Sun, 2007-06-24 at 22:12 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> Mike McGrath wrote:
> > Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> >>
> >> What do folks think of extending smolt into more of a system profiler
> >> including optionally collecting information on installed packages?
> >>
> > 
> > I'm on the fence about this but would put package information lower in 
> > priority then some of the ratings system stuff.  Mugshot is doing some 
> > package stuff already.
> 
> True but that code is tied to mugshot (I asked) and would require users 
> to sign up with mugshot while Smolt is in first boot and I think many 
> end users would prefer the unobtrusive method. As long as we have it 
> optional (ie) I should be able to send the hardware details or the 
> packaging stats or both, it should be a useful thing to do.

I would rather leave the packaging stuff up to the mugshot guys.  They
will add an interesting social aspect to it.  What I _am_ interested for
smolt, though, is hardware compatibility surveys.  I think that Mike and
I have discussed that in the past and we just never figured out how it
would work.  i.e. "does this laptop suspend with kernel X" which is
different than the data we collect now which doesn't really change with
time.  It's a new set of data related to hardware that we can build
entries with over time and be able to measure something important: how
good we do with our hardware support and specific releases.

--Chris