Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

[drooghead]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

@charles052

I loved your artwork. You don't need to be apologetic about being a "noob", our technical skills are common whereas you have a gift.

[saurav]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

The distro developers cannot continue keeping drivers for older hardware, nor can driver developers continue keeping code for older equipment in their drivers.

Hi GreyGeek...

Just as an idea, would it be possible within the Debian community (or perhaps just the Ubuntu based distributions,) that drivers and related software could be kept in a permanent repository that could either be made available upon installation of the OS or by installing a separate PPA key? I'm not sure how this process would work with drivers that require a recompilation of the kernel, but I think it might be a useful feature for those systems not requiring this extensive of a modification and could be installed easily through a CLI, using APT or through a package manager.

I'm thinking, in part, of the old Nvidia and ATI drivers for cards like the Riva TNT2 card and the Radeon 7200 that I used a few years ago with older versions of Ubuntu (5.10 and 6.04.)

Regards...

Excellent idea, though I don't know what is required to make this work. It would address at least part of the issue I have been talking about. Ubuntu does have a repository for proprietary drivers, but what we want here is the older or working drivers that could be maintained for newer releases of the distro. Who will want to maintain them though? Then again, if it can be done for drivers, it can be done for other software too such as desktop environments, but going on like this, it ultimately creates a whole new distribution! Maybe that is what we need - people who are dissatisfied like me but knowledgeable enough should perhaps make their own distros!

[de_koraco]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

You wouldn't need to make a new distro. It would be enough to set up a PPA on Launchpad, something like legacy drivers PPA, the opposite of xswat and xorg edgers.

[ardvark71]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

Who will want to maintain them though?

Hi...

Thank you, I was thinking this would be one of the official repositories maintained by Canonical...but it doesn't have to be.

Regards...

[dequire]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

When you go to buy a PC, it has Windows on it. It was MADE to run Windows (regardless of how new or old your PC in question is). Want an Apple? They make their own hardware and software. Want the "perfect distro"? Buy a PC made by a Linux PC manufacturer, that's been designed, built, and tested for (K)Ubuntu Linux.

The fact that Kubuntu does run on the vast majority of hardware out there is truly amazing, and a testament to FOSS in general, and Ubuntu and the Linux kernel more specifically.

[saurav]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

When you go to buy a PC, it has Windows on it. It was MADE to run Windows (regardless of how new or old your PC in question is). Want an Apple? They make their own hardware and software. Want the "perfect distro"? Buy a PC made by a Linux PC manufacturer, that's been designed, built, and tested for (K)Ubuntu Linux.

The fact that Kubuntu does run on the vast majority of hardware out there is truly amazing, and a testament to FOSS in general, and Ubuntu and the Linux kernel more specifically.

When I go to buy a PC, I don't actually buy a PC - I assemble one. We all mostly get our desktop computers assembled here and none of them "have" Windows, though most people load up pirated copies anyway. And what is it about Apple? Even your microwave oven comes with its own software that's designed to match its hardware. Right now, I have a laptop, which too, did not have Windows pre-installed on it, neither did it come with any Windows CD/DVD, and nor is it specifically made for Windows. In fact, tethering my phone to my model of laptop works in Linux but not in Windows, and so does my printer. But the laptop runs every OS well - as well as the OS is capable of running. Most OS's have their problems, which many people either overlook or do not wish to admit. Read my very first post with which I started this thread, then buy a desktop or laptop made specially for Linux, which even comes with the latest version of your favourite distro pre-installed, and let me know if the whole set up is unaffected by all the problems I have mentioned in that first post.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

....
Just as an idea, would it be possible within the Debian community (or perhaps just the Ubuntu based distributions,) that drivers and related software could be kept in a permanent repository that could either be made available upon installation of the OS or by installing a separate PPA key?
....

That is what is already being done. ATI keeps their old Catalyst drivers under their "Archive" webpage. Ditto for Nvidia, I believe. However, those old drivers expect certain kernels, and the kernels expect certain drivers. IF you were to use an archived Catalyst driver, for example, you would have to lock your kernel to the most recent one that the Catalyst driver would recognize and work under. The would block you from receiving new features, security patches, or code fixes. I'm not sure KDE 4.x would work under an older 2.4 or 2.6.x (x < 10) kernel. USB sticks may not, if the kernel didn't have 2.0 or 3.0 drivers for them. Etc.....

[ardvark71]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

That is what is already being done. ATI keeps their old Catalyst drivers under their "Archive" webpage. Ditto for Nvidia, I believe. However, those old drivers expect certain kernels, and the kernels expect certain drivers. IF you were to use an archived Catalyst driver, for example, you would have to lock your kernel to the most recent one that the Catalyst driver would recognize and work under. The would block you from receiving new features, security patches, or code fixes. I'm not sure KDE 4.x would work under an older 2.4 or 2.6.x (x < 10) kernel. USB sticks may not, if the kernel didn't have 2.0 or 3.0 drivers for them. Etc.....

Hi GreyGeek...

OK, I had forgotten about that little glitch. There is no way to create the driver software from being kernel specific? I don't specialize in software or coding so I'm not fully versed in Linux architecture or code.

Regards...

[GreyGeek]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

The kernel is now modularized, so the various drivers are usually kernel modules (*.ko), which "fit" with certain versions of the kernel. "lsmod" shows which kernel modules have been loaded.

The kernel drives the whole thing.

[claydoh]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

The distro developers cannot continue keeping drivers for older hardware, nor can driver developers continue keeping code for older equipment in their drivers.

Hi GreyGeek...

Just as an idea, would it be possible within the Debian community (or perhaps just the Ubuntu based distributions,) that drivers and related software could be kept in a permanent repository that could either be made available upon installation of the OS or by installing a separate PPA key? I'm not sure how this process would work with drivers that require a recompilation of the kernel, but I think it might be a useful feature for those systems not requiring this extensive of a modification and could be installed easily through a CLI, using APT or through a package manager.

I'm thinking, in part, of the old Nvidia and ATI drivers for cards like the Riva TNT2 card and the Radeon 7200 that I used a few years ago with older versions of Ubuntu (5.10 and 6.04.)

Regards...

If the ati 7200 is in any way similar to the mobility 7200 gpu, the open driver actually outperform the last fglrx that supported it.

Anyway, if this was something that actually worked well, I would think someone would have already done it.

And don't forget it is not just the kernel and the driver, there is also what xorg needs/wants/supports as well.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

.....
And don't forget it is not just the kernel and the driver, there is also what xorg needs/wants/supports as well.

Xorg writes the libraries that the video modules the kernel loads interacts with.

[ardvark71]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

.....
And don't forget it is not just the kernel and the driver, there is also what xorg needs/wants/supports as well.

Xorg writes the libraries that the video modules the kernel loads interacts with.

Hi Claydoh and GreyGeek...

Sounds fairly complex, how does this work in Windows as a comparison?

Regards...

[GreyGeek]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

.....
Sounds fairly complex, how does this work in Windows as a comparison?

The same way, except that PC OEMs and Microsoft work together, sharing the chip's specs, to create the video driver for each particular model. Specs are not given to Xorg, they have to reverse engineer. Even when chip makers release an open source driver, that driver is a general driver that may or may not work on any particular PC because each PC OEM implements their display and chip driver uniquely. Except for peripherals that may be attached after a computer is purchased and the Windows installation completed, the on board hardware drivers have already been loaded and configured by the PC OEM.

Advantage: Microsoft.
Legality: Check the Sherman-Clayton Anti-Trust Act, which states that the vendor of Product A cannot require the consumer to purchase a product from Vendor B. It is like Ford requiring that you use only Shell gasoline. Even worse, it is like Shell putting a proprietary combination of radio-isotopes in their gas and Ford having sensors that disable the car if the radiation signature of those isotops is not found in the gasoline, then bribing Congress to pass an IMCA (Isotope Millennium Copyright Act) which makes it illegal to disable the sensors or wire around them to fool the logic circuits.

[ardvark71]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

Hi GreyGeek...

Thank you for your help

Regards...

[saurav]

Re: Can we ever have a perfect distro? A call to the community

Having been involved in software development for Windows for several years, I beg to differ. Firstly, there is no explicit counterpart of Xorg in Windows. The Windows graphical interface is managed by the kernel and its modules which talk to the video driver, and not in the userspace. Secondly, as I mentioned in a previous post, it is possible to get a computer assembled by putting together parts of your choice instead of buying a prefabricated PC which already has drivers loaded. In this scenario you can use just about any component in your computer, manufactured by just about any company, even some lesser known or local ones that we have here. For every such component the manufacturer provides Windows, and in many cases Mac, drivers. Even if it is to be believed that Microsoft has tie-ups with each and every hardware company in every remote corner of the world, it would be hard for me to believe, given the large number of components available with Mac drivers in our market, that even Apple has such tie-ups with a large number of companies that primarily manufacture PC hardware. I have also seen non-standard "chipsets," the basic design that manufacturers follow to build their components, which too have been available with Windows and Mac drivers, so this is not just a case of Microsoft teaming up with major chipset designers. Also, the firmware too differs on different components.