How do I enable dkms support in Solus? I just got a Wi-Fi-6 USB Wi-Fi adapter, and it uses the 8852bu driver. There is a driver on GGitHub, but it installs with dkms. I searched the Software Center from the menu, and eopkg from the terminal using both "dkms" and "DKMS" to no avail. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Ernie

As far as I know, Solus does not support DKMS. What is the model of the adapter?, we maybe can help with more info.

@Phiqu, I appreciate your response, however I've decided to try out an Arch-based distribution for a while, so I no longer need this information. I really like Solus, but I've run into too many similar situations with it. I don't like hacking work-a rounds to set things up the way I want, and I don't want to re-build the driver every time I upgrade to a newer kernel. That's what DKMS is for (IMNSHO). Maybe when the Wi-Fi-6 driver I need becomes in-built in the kernel, I'll return, but for now, I'm going to embark on a new adventure with the new/different distribution.

I thank everyone here for all the help I've received,

Ernie

Solus doesn't support DKMS because in the opinion of previous maintainers it provides a sub-par experience. It requires that enduser systems have a compiler/toolchain setup and waste CPU on building the kernel modules on every update. If the build fails most users (remember, Solus is designed to be easy to use for non-technical users) are ill-equipped to debug the build issues.

Instead, Solus uses the model that all kernel modules are distributed by the package manager. This has the benefit that the person doing the kernel updates (me mostly) is the person who fixes the build issues with the kernel modules, and the end-user just downloads re-built modules whenever they download their usual kernel updates. The downside is that someone needs to package it for Solus before that improved experience is possible.

If at some point you feel like coming back to Solus feel free to open a package request for that driver here. It looks reasonable enough to include in the repositories, but there's no point if noone is going to be using it.

    ReillyBrogan, I'd never have decided to make any changes at all if this driver (or DKMS) were currently available and I'll return as soon as one of the two becomes available, either as a built-in kernel driver or as a package/set of packages in the repository. I made a request (https://github.com/getsolus/packages/issues/967) for my driver because it'll help me as well as other users who have an adapter that uses the chip sets it supports. I hope it becomes available ASAP 🙂

    Note: I didn't know that I could/how to make such requests (thank you for the link) or I'd have made the request before making any other changes (I'm temporarily using Manjaro - not what I really want). While I know how to build packages from source, I prefer not to have to do so.

    Thank you for such a helpful reply,

    Ernie