I think we are all in agreement. Before I understood how well dmidecode works these days I was assuming manual was the only option. Now we know it isnt.

 

I suggest we would start small with a system hardware info page formatted in such as way as to be condusive to users using it as their forum sig. From there we can see if its worth the effort to move on.

 

Assuming Limetech signs on that is

I like the idea that has come out of this but I do think a small list of hardware would still be good.

 

It would be nice to know what hardware limetech (Tom) is using for his development. There is/was two officially recommended MB's from limetech, but they are now dated. Having a small known list of the most compatible hardware is good. That way if someone wants to go build a reliable system the info is there Sure it might be difficult to find or might not be the most cost effective but it is what it is. Also a small list of what hardware to avoid would be nice. IE, realtek chipsets will probably work but intel would be a better choice.

This is the crux of the problem. Limetech will have sample systems but i suspect they wont be refreshing them often. So this means you would either need to get one of the server boards Limetech uses (very expensive and too expensive for most users) or try and hunt down a consumer board that matches (which can get hard even 6 months after their release date).

 

A better idea is the the one we are looking at where knowing that there are XX installs on kit YY gives you a strong indicator of no issues and a place to start searching the forum for known issues.

 

The nature of this idea means it stays fresh so you dont end up like we all did trying to hunt down a specific board (it took me 2 months last time to get the official board and I ended up paying about 150% more than retail to get it i.e. i paid nearly 3 times more than a current gen board which probably would have worked anyway).

 

Lets keep something in mind. With the exception of a few known gotchas the Linux kernel and therefore unRAID is in a wghole new league of hardware compatibilty. When i first started here there was a high chance that unRAID wouldnt boot or would crash if you didnt get a specific board. Now days people buy all sorts of stuff and issue reports are essentially common driver/chipset issues and not "my machine crashes 8 times a day"

A community driven simple HCL would probably do a lot of good.  Motherboard, NIC, HDD controller, Virtual (y/n), all in drop down searchable lists.

We have had a community driven list for ever already.

 

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Hardware_Compatibility

 

Its a fine effort but limited to a handful of keen users (one of which is staff and a reseller).

 

IMHO it was a fine experiment that has failed (not taking away from the work).

 

It is time for something else