Intuitive options for users for automatic updates for stable drivers for 802.11/audio/video

[Andy Whitcroft]

On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 06:21:49PM -0800, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> Hey guys, I like how sometimes on some vendor sites they have a link
> to some Debian/Ubuntu package and if the user clicks on it, it
> magically installs. Was wondering if it would make sense to expand on
> this and have a link to the respective ubuntu packages for
> compat-wireless stable releases here:
> 
> http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Download/stable/

Cirtainly the default on Ubuntu (and I suspect Debian) is to fire up
something which can install a .deb if you click on one in the web.  For
this just having the .deb would probabally do the trick.  Perhaps a link
into the launchpad librarian (which keeps them forever on a fixed URL)
might work in this case.

> Alternatively, it would be neat that if a device is not detected as
> supported the user can get a prompt to install some more updated
> stable drivers and install these. That or some option upon
> installation which lets it always seek the latests stable driver
> updates. This might come in handy for video and sounds too, thoughts?

I suspect that Jockey might be able to help here, it can make things
happen with cirtain hardware for instance.  I am not sure how rich its
ruleset is, ie. if it can say "if a wireless device is unclaimed" though
I assume lspci output contains enough information to tell that is true.
Hrmmm.

-apw