How can I include the latest OSS Radeon Drivers in infinityOS?

[darkphoenix22]

I was just wondering what packages (and what PPAs I could get them from) I would need to update Ubuntu Karmic to use the latest Radeon drivers. I would prefer to update as little of the core OS as possible.

I am looking to add support for the latest Radeon drivers to my distribution, infinityOS, but would like my users to have to update as little packages as possible.

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Here's some info on my distribution:

infinityOS is a media-orientated operating system based on Ubuntu. It strives to be as easy-to-use and lightweight as possible, while retaining a full range of multimedia features. It includes a fully integrated BitTorrent client capable of automatic downloading and a wide variety of media codecs, so your entire media library may be played out of the box. It supports most computers, from netbooks to desktops to media centers.

You can get it from: http://infinityos.net

Thanks,
Ryan

[Kano]

For DDX which is used for xv you only a very small update - the xserver-xorg-video-ati/radeon package (this still works for Xserver 1.4.2). For other things you need much more updates, like when you would like to use kms you would need new kernel, new libdrm, new mesa...

[darkphoenix22]

For DDX which is used for xv you only a very small update - the xserver-xorg-video-ati/radeon package (this still works for Xserver 1.4.2). For other things you need much more updates, like when you would like to use kms you would need new kernel, new libdrm, new mesa...

Gah, Linux/X.org really needs to become more modular.

[darkphoenix22]

Or less so I guess in some cases.

I should not have to update my X.org server and kernel to use a newer version of a driver.

[Kano]

Well the kernel of course, because the drm bits of the oss drivers are in there and mesa is for opengl support. The xserver itself is not always needed as update when it is new "enough".

[darkphoenix22]

Perhaps then, what might be best is to take the video APIs of of the kernel itself and package them separately. This is would be very similar to what was done with the audio APIs and ALSA.

This way my users could update to the latest drivers without having to update their entire kernel.

I'm going to post this suggestion on the kernel mailing list and see what sort of response I get.

[pingufunkybeat]

The drm bits needed for video were recently moved from outside of the kernel into the kernel tree. It is much more convenient for the developers this way.

[darkphoenix22]

Ya, I just feel that the video APIs, including the drm stuff, should be an external library like ALSA. It would be much more convient for users.

Right now, it seems the only way to get the latest OSS drivers is to run a rolling release distro like Debian unstable, Gentoo or Arch.

[agd5f]

libdrm and the driver specific drm libs (libdrm_radeon, libdrm_intel, etc.) are not part of the kernel and don't depend on a specific kernel.

[darkphoenix22]

Which parts would depend on the kernel?