>but then package those modules into separate packages. If you don't need somedriver.ko, then you don't `apt install linux-driver-somedriver
But I don't want to know what drivers I need and will need next. Tomorrow I could buy a different wifi module and then what? Spend 3 hours googling which rtl378326973268632aahaxhabt.ko to install? Thanks but no thanks.
So why can't someone (probably the distro) build a utility that detects the hardware and installs the required kernal module?
We can have security and convenience.
That existed for a very short period of time before it became simpler to just ship everything all the time. I remember at least one distro booting with a single processor kernel and detecting that it could use an SMP kernel and did I want to pull it down?
and how would it get that module without network access. I'd say for network drivers specifically, this is tough one.
It would work for various other drivers though.
The standard method is for the installer to have the needful and then it knows what packages to install to give you the network drivers you need going forward (shades of slipstreaming in all the network drivers I could find into W2K custom ISOs so I'd not need to find floppies).
On older versions of Windows you used to get popups saying new hardware is detected, would you like to install the driver now?
It was always fun to get those when the hardware hadn't changed.