[Kde-hardware-devel] API addition in Solid

[Matthias Kretz]

On Saturday 17 November 2007, Kevin Ottens wrote:
> Le samedi 17 novembre 2007, Matthias Kretz a écrit :
> > You mean if I have e.g. USB headsets of the same brand and type. Yes. But
> > they get the same name, the same icon and have the same initialPreference
> > anyway. There's nothing to tell them apart and for what I'm concerned I
> > actually want those to be the same.
>
> Funny, because the kopete guys wanted to distinguish between twin devices
> too. But that's mainly for the multi-seats case, you might run into the
> same problem I guess.

Well if it were possible to uniquely identify them... But if I had two 
Logitech USB Headesets of the same type I could even tell them apart 
physically, unless I paint one of them. But how should Solid know which one's 
the painted one?

> > The missing uniqueIdentifier in Solid is not a showstopper, sure. But I
> > need a unique identifier to fix a showstopper. Many people by default
> > have no sound because I cannot order the audio devices correctly
> > initially.
>
> Now, you're getting me curious. :-)
> What's the problem with the initial ordering? I lack background and context
> here. Sorry if I'm wasting some of your time, but collecting such usecases
> is of course interesting for me (as I said post-4.0 I'd like to go toward
> better identitiers).

1. There are soundcards where ALSA/HAL report the exact same name for all 
devices. The only way to actually tell them apart is by looking at the device 
number. This need to be fixable in a sensible way by users.
2. Many soundcards have a S/PDIF device and there's no way to know that it is 
one. (sometimes the card name has a IEC958 or S/PDIF, then I can recognize it 
as such a device) Initially S/PDIF devices should not be used if another 
device is available sind most users don't have an external DAC connected. => 
Devices need to correctly be identified as less preferred. This needs to be 
fixable in a sensible way by users.
3. Assigning an icon to a device is mostly guesswork as well. Would be nice if 
a user could say, hey my device is a USB Headset, please use the 
corresponding icon.

To fix all that I want to introduce a "hardware database" that can easily be 
extended by the user and then shared to create a better out-of-the-box 
experience.

-- 
________________________________________________________
Matthias Kretz (Germany)                            <><
http://Vir.homelinux.org/
MatthiasKretz at gmx.net, kretz at kde.org,
Matthias.Kretz at urz.uni-heidelberg.de
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