proprietary gfx drivers packages

[skywaker]

Hi. How will be do a propiertary drivers for graphics cards like radeon hd or nvidia in salix?

[thenktor]

Hmm, at least for me using the nvidia install script is more straight forward as using packages for this, because everytime a new kernel is in the repos a new driver package has to be done simultaneously.

[skywaker]

i only ask becouse i am zenwalk user and i allways for my radeonhd use propertary driver.. i am not going to zenwalk official forum i only use zenwalk and what i dont know i find on the net but now i read about Salix and is interest for me.

[thenktor]

I have no idea about radeonhd drivers

[JRD]

I made a ZENBUILD that pick up the last nvidia driver from the website automatically and build a new package uppon it.
I prefer packages.
I can adapt the ZENBUILD to a SLKBUILD.

It could be a good idea to install a nvidia meta-package that add an entry in a menu (and a script in /usr/sbin).
When you click on it (or launch the script), it build the package and install (or update) it.
What do you think of that ? It's inspired of how the media codecs are done in Salix.

[Duncan_Idaho]

It could be a good idea to install a nvidia meta-package that add an entry in a menu (and a script in /usr/sbin).
When you click on it (or launch the script), it build the package and install (or update) it.
What do you think of that ? It's inspired of how the media codecs are done in Salix.

hi, it would be great if this could be done for the ati catalyst driver too

[laprjns]

... When you click on it (or launch the script), it build the package and install (or update) it.

I believe this will require the kernel-source package to installed on the systems.

[gapan]

I believe this will require the kernel-source package to installed on the systems.

Correct!

[JRD]

Yes for now, the kernel-source package is required.
But only a few includes files are required in fact, not the "source" files. kernel-headers should be enought, but for a bit of time, the slackware kernel-headers package is bad done. Same for VirtualBox drivers.
Maybe we must check what is missing from kernel-headers and correct it ?

[laprjns]

Maybe we must check what is missing from kernel-headers and correct it ?

Depending on the kernel version, it seems to be a moving target. For the 2.6.28 kernel, I found this:
http://support.zenwalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=21680; which eventually got fixed in one of the later version of 2.6.30. For the 2.6.30 kenrel, i found this: http://support.zenwalk.org/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=24487. Since this is posted in the developers forum, gapan probabily doesn't have access so I copy it here.

Although the problem in this thread got fixed, it came back on the 2.6.29 kernel and continues on the 2.6.30 kernel. These kernels with just the kernelheader package installed, do not allow compiling of drivers for VirtualBox and NVIDIA. The kernelsource package; a package that is very large and takes a long time to download and install, is required.
Since this doesn't seem to be the case for other distributions I have looked into what needs to be added to the header package to allow the compiling of these drivers. I found that adding /trace directory and it's 15 files found in the /usr/src/linux-2.6.30.5/include/ directory of the kernelsource package to the kernelheader directory tree fixed the problem. Just adding this one directory , ~ 18kb in size, allows the compiling of these drivers without installing the kernel source package.
Rich

I never could figure out what was missing in the 2.6.29 kernel; it wasn't really around that long on ZW. I did take a quick look at the Salix 2.6.29 kernel and my impression was that there was a lot more missing than just a link and /or a directory.
Rich