Include dkms on the base iso

It would be handy to have dkms installed on the default iso. Mostly for machines that need broadcom drivers but have no way to connect to the internet otherwise (more common with cheaper netbook class notebooks). I expected to download the broadcom-sta-dkms drivers from the ubuntu repository web interface, but I was not expecting to have to pull down dkms as well.

Hi and welcome.

Usually with Broadcom you need to connect via rj45 and tick the proprietary software option on the installer. Surprised that you needed to download the driver via the web first.

I believe the issue here is more so that there was no RJ45 available (just WIFI) - of which did not work during install.

Last time I looked at this 2 years ago, dkms pulled in development libraries which were deemed a security issue for an iso.

correct: the laptop in question does not have a ethernet jack. Its wireless only. I have 3 such notebooks: 2 lenovo cheap notebooks and a acer chromebook. The two lenovo units have broadcom wireless that does not work with the open source drivers.

when I installed dkms, that was the only package I installed. It couldn’t pull anything in since the notebook did not have internet capability at the time, so unwanted dev libraries seems to not be an issue, at least for the ubuntu budgie 19.04 iso.

dkms is a rather important package imo, since so many other packages rely on it (broadcom, virtualbox, nvidia, etc…). dkms is designed for exactly this situation, adding drivers not present in the kernel by default.

Will need to look at the standard Ubuntu ISO to see if dkms is also pulled in to their ISO.

As much as I tried to like elementary OS (and failed) they DO have live wifi on their installer. Maybe the elementary OS build could be used as an example?