[Oberon] PPP Wizardry

[Patrik Reali]

> > When trying to decide if one's machine is capable of running
> > Native Oberon or Bluebottle such a Wizard written for MS Windows
> > or Linux would seem appropriate.  Most users do not know whether
> > their machine uses an IDE drive or otherwise.  There are installation
> > tools for Native that can reveal the number and type of devices
> > on a machine.  All that would be necessary is to create an executeable
> > for Windows/Linux that does the same (or similar) process and tell
> > the user whether their machine is compatible with Oberon.
>
> There are dianostics already available such as MSD.EXE for W31
> and Dxdiag.exe for W9x (part of the DirectX packages).  I would
> guess that Linux has similar diagnostics.  It would only be necessary
> to recommend and link to these various diagnostics for those who
> for whatever reason do not have them installed with their OS.

For Linux, a look into the various logs in \proc can give the information
needed.

I think it would be simple to give pointers to all the locations where the
information is to be found:

Under Windows (W2K):
* Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System
* Click on the "Hardware" tab
* Click on the Device Manager button
* Is there an IDE ATA/ATAPI controller?
    -> Yes: use the ATA driver
* Is there a SCSI controller?
    -> open the properties and check the vendor / model in
http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/hcl.html
* Click on the "+" next to the "Display Adapters" entry
* Get the properties (e.g. right click and select properties) of the adapter
* Find Vendor and Model
* Check if available in hcl.html
* If a network adapter is present, get vendor and model and lookup in
hcl.html

You can also install the "PCIScan" tool and get the signatures of the
various
devices. The hcl.html page gives also the signatures of the different
devices.
This applies only to the PCI devices.

Furthermore, you can run the vesainfo.exe program (available on the ftp
server)
to detect if your display adapter supports the VESA standard that the oberon
driver
requires.

These few steps already suffice to know which hardware you're running on.


-Patrik