Smolt (Linux) Explained

Smolt was a computer program used to gather hardware information from computers running Linux, and submit them to a central server for statistical purposes, quality assurance and support. It was initiated by Fedora,^[1] with the release of Fedora 7,^[2] and soon after it was a combined effort of various Linux projects. Information collection was voluntary (opt-in) and anonymous.^[3] Smolt did not run automatically. It requested permission before uploading new data to the Smolt server. On October 10, 2012, it was announced that smolt would be discontinued on November 1, 2013.^[4] That is now in effect. The Smolt webpage is no longer available.

The project is superseded by Hardware probe.^[5]

General

Before Smolt there was no widely accepted system for assembling Linux statistics in one place. Smolt was not the first nor the only attempt, but it is the first accepted by major Linux distributions.

Collecting this kind of data across distributions can:

• aid developers in detecting hardware that is poorly supported
• focus efforts on popular hardware
• provide workaround and fix tips^[6]
• help users to choose the best distribution for their hardware
• convince hardware vendors to support Linux

Use

Smolt was included in:

• Fedora
• openSUSE, releases from 11.1 to 12.2;^{[7] [8]}
• RHEL and CentOS see https://web.archive.org/web/20090109010205/http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/ (retired link)
• Gentoo see https://web.archive.org/web/20090207100254/http://packages.gentoo.org/package/app-admin/smolt
• MythTV see http://smolt.mythtv.org/

Smolt server

The Smolt server stored all collected data.^[9]

See also

• Linux Counter

External links

• Smolt wiki
• Smolt retirement
• openSUSE about Smolt

Notes and References

1. Web site: Smolt, Open Invitation . Mike . McGrath . 2007-07-12 . Linux Weekly News . 2 November 2011.
2. Web site: Smolt profiles distro hardware use . Bruce . Byfield . 2007-08-08 . Linux.com . 2 November 2011 . unfit . https://web.archive.org/web/20110521190547/http://www.linux.com/archive/feature/118322 . May 21, 2011 .
3. Web site: Smolt Privacy Policy . Smolt Wiki . 2 November 2011.
4. Web site: Smolt retirement. Fedora . 2012-10-10 .
5. Web site: Hardware probe. Fedora Wiki . 2019-08-21 .
6. Web site: Smolt . Smolt Wiki . 2 November 2011.
7. Web site: Smolt . openSUSE wiki . 2 November 2011 . http://en.opensuse.org/index.php?title=Smolt&oldid=12586 . 9 July 2010.
8. Web site: Smolt gets adopted by openSUSE . OSnews.com . 2008-12-09 . 2 November 2011.
9. Web site: Smolt . 2009-02-25 . 2009-02-23 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090223212529/http://smolts.org/ . dead .