Hwd speed can't be beat

Question

Hey all, just like to report on some progress with hwd and lshwd
Thanks to z4ziggy and rasat (along with some minor input from myself) the archlinux hardware detection provided by hwd/lshwd is now faster than kudzu (redhat) and knoppix... monitor detection in both of these is very sluggish, and now hwd takes less than a second (or about 0.2s on non-DDC setups) whereas knoppix usually takes about 3-10 seconds... and runs about the same on a non-DDC setup.
right now, I seriously doubt the speed/accuracy of this setup can be beaten - but it's going to require some testing.
anyone interested in helping out with this?

Answer 1

hwsetup -v output for my videocard:
class:  VIDEO
bus:    PCI
device: fb0
driver: Card:RIVA TNT2
desc:   nVidia Corp.|Riva TNT2 Model 64
So it doesn't say vesa directly, nor nv.
Lspci's output is more or less the same as lshwd's output (surprise ;-):
~ $ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C693A/694x [Apollo PRO133x] (rev c4)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C598/694x [Apollo MVP3/Pro133x AGP]
00:07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 22)
00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586/B/686A/B PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 10)
00:07.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 10)
00:07.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 10)
00:07.4 SMBus: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 30)
00:07.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 20)
00:0e.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8029(AS)
00:0f.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation RIVA TNT2 Model 64 (rev 15)
~ $ lspci -n
00:00.0 Class 0600: 1106:0691 (rev c4)
00:01.0 Class 0604: 1106:8598
00:07.0 Class 0601: 1106:0686 (rev 22)
00:07.1 Class 0101: 1106:0571 (rev 10)
00:07.2 Class 0c03: 1106:3038 (rev 10)
00:07.3 Class 0c03: 1106:3038 (rev 10)
00:07.4 Class 0c05: 1106:3057 (rev 30)
00:07.5 Class 0401: 1106:3058 (rev 20)
00:0e.0 Class 0200: 10ec:8029
00:0f.0 Class 0200: 10ec:8139 (rev 10)
01:00.0 Class 0300: 10de:002d (rev 15)
As you also could have seen with lshwd's output, it's a Nvidia TNT2 card (model 64). If that doesn't ring a bell: TNT2 was the last card before the Geforce 1, so quite enough time to put it in some list.
I use a cutom kernel with most things build in and not as modules. Besides, it's about hardware detection, not module loading. The info from hotplug was more to show all the stuff that's present, and to show how way too long it takes to figure that out (and load the modules, but still). Hotplug is hard to beat in functionality: It basically finds everything, it calls also udev so the device files can be made and allows custom scripts which are called when the device of your choice is detected (useful for things like automatic network connection setup with e.g. usb modems). Weak point of hotplug is that it's only good at finding devices when they're plugged in, so the /sys scanning and shellscript bouncing at startup with /etc/rc.d/hotplug start is way too slow. A lacking feature is automatic X config generation, but that shouldn't be hotplug's task anyway, IMHO that's something that X should have build in, something that's good and fast enough to do at each startup (utopia?). It doesn't help that not all hardware is easily autoconfigured.
I don't see the use of a /etc/sysconfig directory, as the goal seems to be fast autoconfiguration and Arch doesn't use sysconfig anyway. Full x info includes monitor setup stuff, one of the hardest things to reliably autodetect well. If you're lucky the monitor supports autodetection (DCC or whatever), but even if it does it can give unreliable info, thus not using the monitor optimally. Also doing input devices detection when not being able to count on /dev/input/* may be hard (serial mouse/keyboard, usb things, etc).