Public bug reported: [ Impact ]
With the removal of software-properties from the default Ubuntu Desktop 26.04 installation, users lack any way of managing drivers without going through the CLI. Backporting ubuntu-drivers-common’s D-Bus service to 26.04 would allow user interfaces (specifically in this case, the App Center) to interact with and install drivers through a GUI. Without this, users could be left with broken or unstable systems, with no obvious path to remediation. [ Test Plan ] To reproduce, install Ubuntu Desktop 26.04 and attempt to use the built- in apps to find or manage system drivers. This is impossible at the moment, without using the CLI or installing additional apps. To test the fix, take note of the existing behavior of ubuntu-drivers install, ubuntu-drivers install –gpgpu, and ubuntu-drivers list. Install the new version of ubuntu-drivers-common with the D-Bus service, and ensure that the CLI functionality remains the same as before. Call the D-Bus method added (for example, with D-Spy) and ensure the output reflects your system’s devices and corresponding drivers. For example, on my machine, gdbus call --system --dest com.ubuntu.Drivers --object-path /com/ubuntu/Drivers --method com.ubuntu.Drivers.drivers outputs an empty response since my machine doesn’t have any devices that need drivers. On an NVIDIA GPU device, it outputs a list of each NVIDIA driver version, as well as the packages that should be installed alongside each driver option. [ Where problems could occur ] This change adds a small, read-only D-Bus service to the existing ubuntu-drivers-common codebase, and does not modify how the existing software works. It does touch some areas of detect.py to enable the service to provide correct information in a read-only manner without duplicating the existing driver detection logic. We have ensured that any additions to the modified function signatures include defaults that should prevent any change of behavior for existing callers, so the biggest chance of problems would be for the new D-Bus service's users, if the D-Bus service outputs incorrect information. Regressions to the existing CLI's behavior are unlikely, unless we made a mistake in our implementation of the default conditional paths. [ Other Info ] The service is primarily added to facilitate driver management through a GUI, namely the App Center. Work is already in progress on implementing this functionality in the App Center, and a snapd interface has also already been created (ubuntu-drivers-observe). These PRs contain all of the relevant patches: https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-drivers-common/pull/163 https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-drivers-common/pull/174 https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-drivers-common/pull/175 ** Affects: ubuntu-drivers-common (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Assignee: Mitchell Augustin (mitchellaugustin) Status: New ** Affects: ubuntu-drivers-common (Ubuntu Resolute) Importance: Undecided Assignee: Mitchell Augustin (mitchellaugustin) Status: New ** Affects: ubuntu-drivers-common (Ubuntu Stonking) Importance: Undecided Assignee: Mitchell Augustin (mitchellaugustin) Status: New -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2166233 Title: [SRU] Backport D-Bus service to 26.04 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-drivers-common/+bug/2166233/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
