I want to suggest a database-format for information that can be used to
configure the drivers.
This suggestion includes
- monitors.ndb
- videocards.ndb
They should be available from the FTP-site, and should contain enough
information to play with... Both are not complete or correct, we need to
contact the vendors to get more information.
I'm not sure, yet, how to USE this database. One way would be, to create a
set of scripts that can be integrated into the Kernal-configuration, another
way would be to write an new utility that is called by the
Kernal-configuration-scripts. I kept the entries easy to edit, and to
modify if we change the format.
The basic idea is to use one record per line, that means records are
separated by '\n'. Additionally the fields are separated by ';'.
Strings are always surrounded by '"', otherwise they are a symbol and
replaced by the parser with the correct value.
Bitfields can contain symbols, and logical operations like in C.
To declare frequencies for a monitor we use a komma-separated list of
frequencies and frequency-ranges, the last item in such a field is the
factor, beeing Hz (*1), kHz (*1000) or MHz (*1000000).
Now the discussion:
- What fields are missing/important/unimportant in these databases and should
be added/removed/changed ?
- How should these databases be edited ?
- special program
- text-editor
- form the kernel-configuration
- How to integrate changes ?
- keeping always the original version, and mailing a "diff" to some
robot ?
- Contact vendors ?
- How should this database be parsed ?
- [f]lex/(bison|yacc) ?
- standalone C-program ?
- Perl-script ?
- How should the configuration work ?
- configuration-program parses the list and does user-communication?
- converter parses the list and creates a set of "configure"-scripts?
