3.1 KiB
Beyond the TLDR
HARDWARE GOALS
It is not possible to test YJL with all possible hardware combinations but I do want to do extensive testing with a particular subset.
One thing I hope to do is make sure any released YJL work on the Intel NUC platform out of the box going back at least five generations of NUC. At the time of writing, it looks like Intel NUC 13 is current so a YJL release today I would hope to have just work on the NUC 9–13.
That goal may not always achievable, and note that if that goal is achieved it will probably work on earlier and often later as well, until later gets to the point where new kernel drivers are needed.
The NUC is a very affordable PC often available as an inexpensive kit without an operating system, especially ‘Old Stock’ when newer versions of the NUC are released.
For technically minded students from an economically oppressed background, a NUC is often a very good way for such students to be able to explore their technical aptitude and learn how to master the technical world.
Of course if such students can get a laptop or desktop I want YJL to work there too, but when finances are blocker, a NUC despite its hardware limitations can be a godsend.
For the most part, supporting a NUC just means making sure all the right kernel modules are built for the hardware and that should not be too difficult to do, but it also means testing and possibly looking into making sure the correct software is available (and working) to deal with the issue of over-heating which is more likely in a NUC especially in houses that may not be able to afford suitable air conditioning.
Sometimes for optimal performance, firmware that is not part of the Linux kernel firmware distribution is necessary. It appears that Intel is pretty good at making sure their firmware is made available in that firmware distribution but there may be cases where extra attention and action is needed.
Basically I hope to be able to aquire Intel NUCs for the purpose of testing the install and benchmarking the performance and looking into how to tune what can be tuned for the NUC.
Knock-off NUCs too but at least initially I will have to limit it to testing/tuning Intel and hope it works properly for the knock-offs as a side-effect.
Automated Restore Profile
Inspired by the NUC but useful to almost all hardware scenarios, on a
NUC it likely will be somewhat common for /home to be on a separate
external USB hard drive. It is also possible that /home will reside
on a NAS although support for that probably will not initially exist.
I would like to have a directory within /home possibly called
/home/_restore
with 0750,root,root permissions that includes most metadata needed
to do a quick install of a fresh operating system while retaining
stuff like /etc/passwd, /etc/group, timezone information, package
information, stuff like that so that when a NUC (or other) PC needs
to be replaced the install can go quickly with very little needed
post-install to bring the system back to where it was before a fresh
install was necessary.