Improve detection of device class at install time
The current installation tools set a default hostname based on some device detection. The current detection algorithm is based parsing dmidecode and falling back to laptop-detect if that doesn't work. This is confusing if folks have a phone, a handheld, a laptop, a desktop, a set-top box, and a NAS laying about, and want to ensure these all have distinct names.
The algorithm should be extended to attempt to detect several hardware components, or guess based on attributes of hardware components (a 2.5" 1024x600 screen is probably a phone and a 10" 1024x600 screen is probably a netbook), and generalised to work for all architectures, rather than relying on dmidecode.
Blueprint information
- Status:
- Started
- Approver:
- David Mandala
- Priority:
- Medium
- Drafter:
- Emmet Hikory
- Direction:
- Approved
- Assignee:
- Emmet Hikory
- Definition:
- Approved
- Series goal:
- Accepted for natty
- Implementation:
-
Good progress
- Milestone target:
- None
- Started by
- Emmet Hikory
- Completed by
Related branches
Whiteboard
I can't seem to find the notes for this session, so am not documenting it much. I've uploaded the devicetype-detect package to natty, which implements the limited subset of what I was thinking that I believe was consensus for first-pass implementation. Also included is a devicename-detect script that combines the new devicetype-detect with some of the prior logic from ubiquity and some heuristics to get device names for armel and powerpc developed against the cpuinfo samples available in the base-installer test data.
If someone else has specific workitems they'd like to add, please feel free, but I think it's only the following:
Work Items: (natty-alpha-2):
[persia] Write device type detection script: DONE
Work Items: (ubuntu-
[ogra] File a bug with implementation hints for keyboard detection: POSTPONED
[persia] Prepare a ubiquity integration branch for review: TODO
