[NCLUG] Fedora 6 and the RaLink rt2500 wireless card

[Bob Proulx]

Chad Perrin wrote:
> I recall installing ndiswrapper from deb-src repository sources,

I have not used nor heardof deb-src previously and so perhaps after
installing deb-src it automatically recompiles installed source
packages.  I don't know.  I don't see a 'deb-src' package in Debian at
this time.  Perhaps you mean apt-src?  I have heard other people
mention apt-src before but I just have not had time to play with it.

> grabbed with "apt-get source -b" and installed via APT, that

'apt-get source -b' downloads the source at that moment and builds it
at that moment.

> upgraded along with the rest of the installed packages when I ran an
> "apt-get upgrade" later on.

It would certainly be possible for apt-src to add hooks to make that
work.  I will have to try it!

> I'm not certain whether this works in concert with kernel upgrades,
> since I've not really tried that, but it does work when there's a
> new minor version release, security patch, or bugfix available in
> the deb-src repositories for what I've installed from source in that
> manner.

Certainly without apt-src installed there is no automatic compilation
of source packages.

> From what you've said, it sounds like you're talking about needing to
> recompile when you install from source outside of the APT system, which
> is to me at least pretty much a tautology.  It's also not really
> relevant to what I said, if that's what you meant.  Did I misunderstand
> you?

You misunderstood.  Let's take the example of the nvidia driver.  Here
are the steps, in a simplified form.  And I am not going to test these
at this moment so there may be typos.

Using the Debian source packages

  export KVER=$(uname -r)
  if [ -d /usr/src/kernel-headers-$KVER ]; then
    # simplied source headers installed
    export KSRC=/usr/src/kernel-headers-$KVER
  else
    sudo apt-get install linux-source-$KVER
    export KSRC=/usr/src/linux-src-$KVER
  fi
  sudo apt-get install nvidia-kernel-source nvidia-glx-src

Build the kernel modules

  cd /usr/src
  tar xzf nvidia-kernel-source.tar.gz # /usr/src/modules/...
  tar xjf linux-source-$KVER.tar.bz2
  cd linux-source-$KVER
  cp /boot/config-$KVER .config
  make-kpkg clean
  fakeroot make-kpkg --append_to_version +1-amd64-smp modules_image
  # kernel_image builds the kernel, modules_image builds the modules
  cd /usr/src
  sudo dpkg -i nvidia-kernel-$KVER.deb

Build the graphics drivers

  cd /usr/src/nvidia-glx-X.Y.ZZZZ
  fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc
  cd /usr/src
  sudo dpkg -i nvidia-glx.deb

See /usr/share/doc/nvidia-kernel-source/README.Debian for more details.
This will leave your system with these packages installed.

  ii  linux-image-2.6.19-1+1-amd64-smp    1.1             Linux kernel binary image for version 2.6.19-1+1-amd64-smp.
  ii  nvidia-glx                          1.0.9631-1      NVIDIA binary XFree86 4.x driver
  ii  nvidia-kernel-2.6.19-1+1-amd64-smp  1.0.9631-1+1.1  NVIDIA binary kernel module for Linux 2.6.19-1+1-amd64-smp
  ii  nvidia-kernel-common                1.0.9631-1      NVIDIA binary kernel module common files

At this point let's assume that a security update is posted for the
kernel.  I can install it with 'apt-get upgrade'.  But the nvidia
driver will not be automatically rebuilt.  The linux-source would be
automatically installed.  But I would need to unpack the new source
and 'make-kpkg modules_image' and install the package in order to get
the matching driver built and installed.

Again, a lot of people mention module-assistant (aka m-a) but I prefer
the above process.  By using this process I install these packges on
almost a thousand machines at work.  That is why I prefer this while
people installing on exactly one machine may be preferring m-a.  YMMV.

The version numbers in the above are for example use only.  Do not
scale this drawing.  Void* where prohibited.  Char* elsewhere.
Etcetera, etcetera.

Bob