Some comments about restricted drivers.

Loïc Faure-Lacroix lamerstar at gmail.com
Sat Mar 31 03:23:14 UTC 2007


On 2007-03-28 00:50, Loïc Faure-Lacroix wrote:
> It would be fun to ear or something. Because there is something really
> annoying about restricted drivers i found on ubuntu.
> 
> First, i don't actually understand why ipw3945d is contained with a package
> that contain nvidia driver and madwifi drivers etc.
> These mixup make things really harder for us to upgrade our drivers.
> 
> I'm actually making my own. Debian package for edgy for the nvidia 9755
> But i seriously don't understand why these packages are mixed up. If they
> weren't made this way, it would be painless to make a driver package for
> nvidia or wifi drivers etc.
> People would have to install only the drivers they need. Actually, for
> making my nvidia card work, i have to modify something like 3 packages
> because the nvidia drivers are separated in 3 different package.
> nvidia-kernel nvidia-modules nvidia-glx there was an other one into that
> seemed not to need modification.... nvidia-kernel-common
> 
> I say that because it would be interesting to use an other way to group
> these package for feisty fawn....
> One of the big problem is that when uninstalling these nvidia packages. I
> have to uninstall my wifi deamon.
> I did it one time and got stuck because i wouldn't be able to update my
> distro without it. So for making my package i have to take care of my wifi.
> It's not that i don't understand why i would need to take care of my wifi
> card just because i try to make a nvidia package that would be available for
> more people.
> But in fact, having a restricted-module package is just stupid.
> It would be far more easier to maintaint. One or more package that contain
> only one thing.
> group of package for nvidia something like nvidia-libs
> nvidia-bin....nvidia-glx...
> having other for madwifi ipw3945 etc.
> But having 1 package that contain part of others package is not usefull. If
> someone wants to upgrade his wifi card driver with new drivers that aren't
> actually out. And he want to make a clean package so his computer isn't
> messed up with binaries every where like .run files does. It's a real pain
> to have to look at what package contain any information about my driver so i
> know what package i need to delete. Then see that one package contain an
> other driver that you need so you cant completely delete it.
> Oh well then include it in the package you're making. Well you could look at
> fedora's repos that are made really nicely. Everything is simple to maintain
> etc. I never seen something as wierd as this.
> 
> Thank you. I would appreciate any feedback or explanation on why of this. :)
> -- 
> kernel-team mailing list
> kernel-team@???
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/kernel-team
> 


Ok well, I did my driver package in the same idea as the one already made. I'm fairly new to that so
I don't know if i did a great job...I know that i didn't looked at dependecies etc but the drivers
works and i can actually use beryl and other stuff smoothly. 
Finally, i discovered that nvidia-kernel-common don't actually need changes. There is just the
nvidia-glx and linux-restricted....that needed modification.
I still believe that having every modules into linux-restricted-drivers is not the thing to do.

The best thing would be:
Installing the linux-restricted-driver package will ask you for install other dependencies.

So in other way, someone that don't know what and what not to install will only install.
linux-restricted-driver that will force him to download everything just like now.

and it would let people install only the drivers they need because they are not forced to install
linux-restricted-package.

Or linux-restricted-package could just install something like a documentation about restricted things.
And on the menu of synaptic.On the suggestion menu, there could be every package that would be usefull to install.
But keeping everything as a monolithic packages isn't really great.

here are my package if someone want to modify/tweak make it more useable because i erased dependencies so i 
could install without searching so far. These packages should be modified to replace the existing ones...
http://nulldevice.no-ip.biz/linux-restricted-modules-2.6.17-11-386_2.6.17.7-11.2_i386.deb
http://nulldevice.no-ip.biz/nvidia-glx-9755.deb

That's it. Thanks





More information about the kernel-team mailing list