For a long time, I have wished the Debian installer would automatically install the right packages on the servers I have. If it detect a RAID controller using the cpqarray kernel module, the cpqarrayd package should be installed. If a RAID controller using the mptscsih kernel module is detected, the mpt-status package should be installed. If a i810 compatible video card is detected, the i810switch package should be installed.
I wrote a draft implementation a few years ago using the discover v2 package, but never found time to integrate it into the installer. But, since a few days ago, I found time to do this integration. The daily d-i images install discover automatically and run the required commands as root to install hardware specific packages automatically during installation. The command is aptitude install discover; discover-pkginstall This will look up USB and PCI IDs found on the machine in the database provided by the discover-data package, and install any hardware specific packages detected (after presenting a debconf question which is hidden at the normal debconf priority). To get this working out of the box, the discover-data package need to be updated with mappings from PCI and USB IDs to Debian package names. I've added a few, but I am sure there are mappings missing. If you know of some package that should be installed automatically when some PCI or USB devices are detected, please report them to BTS and the discover-data package, to get the mappings into Debian before Squeeze is released. :) Are there better ways to do this? Anyone willing to work on it? Fedora 13 provides PackageKit to install hardware specific packages after installation. Perhaps we should extend the discover system to listen to DBus events and install hardware packages also after installation? Or port PackageKit to Debian and use it instead? Anyway, a draft system is in d-i at the moment, and I welcome help with updating the hardware mappings to get more packages installed automatically by d-i. :) Happy hacking, -- Petter Reinholdtsen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/2fly6f0ypze....@login2.uio.no