buying a laptop either bare or with Ubuntu

[Jarod Wilson]

On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 17:20 -0500, Ben Scott wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote:
> >>  Can the proprietary driver packages be copied to a separate USB
> >> flash drive, and then installed into the in-RAM "live" system?
> >>
> > The simple answer is yes. What you would need to do is to is to open up the
> > iso, copy in the appropriate drivers or packages, then make a new iso ...
> 
>   No way to just put the needed packages on separate media, and then
> have the regular disc load them?
> 
>   I'm thinking the ideal scenario would be:
> 
> 1. Obtain the standard Ubuntu/Fedora/whatever "live disc" (download
> and burn, free sample, whatever)
> 2. Download any additional driver package(s) you need
> 3. Copy the driver package(s) to a separate USB flash drive
> 4. Stick flash drive in PC, then boot from CD
> 5. CD detects additional stuff on the flash drive, and offers to use it
> 
>   Slightly less ideal, but still very good, would be step 5 requiring
> the operator to manually point the system at the flash drive, either
> at the boot prompt, and/or in the GUI.
> 
>   For example, I know with Red Hat's standard installer, you can feed
> it a driver diskette (or USB flash, etc.), which will add to the
> "stock" capabilities without needing to rebuild the whole kit.  (I
> dunno if that works with their "live" system, though.)

So far as I know, no, it doesn't work with the live system. However, the
live images also have the ability to overlay additional space on a
writable media (i.e. a usb flash stick) as writable, and you can update
and/or install any additional rpms/files/etc. The only limitation is
that you can't install a new kernel and expect to be able to boot it.
But 3rd-party drivers and/or firmware, definitely. So yeah, you could,
for example, have a usb stick that you've added nvidia binary video
drivers and broadcom 802.11n wifi to.

--jarod