Hello John Well I am back, after a bout of sickness :( Read inline. Regards, Sandeep. -----Original Message----- From: anaconda-devel-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:anaconda-devel-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John Summerfield Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 6:17 AM To: Discussion of Development and Customization of the Red Hat Linux Installer Subject: Re: [ PATCH ] RFC: Search and load drivers automatically fromusb-storage media Sandeep_K_Shandilya@xxxxxxxx wrote: >>> I'm not sure that DELL would provide full support for RHEL, or even >>> the kernel, on one of its servers. >>> >>> And if you think I'm difficult, go to debian.org and read some of >>> the > >>> discussions about non-free bits in the kernel! >>> > <sandeep> > This is not about free and non-free stuff, that is a differnet topic. I've been having trouble discovering just what I would be getting should I buy a Dell server, and your technique could well be used to mask non-free software. I've been using Linux for about ten years now, and I've become accustomed to doing things a certain way. I become uncomfortable when a vendor wants to do things differently, and I really do not like phone-home software. <sandeep> There are lots of people who call Dell asking for drivers when they fail to install an OS and anaconds says no harddisks found when it does not find the drivers for disk controllers. The two approaches we could take to fix this 1. The method we are discussing in this email 2. get the driver into a future update of the OS( we are already doing this), we still need 1 to take care of the problem currently. > This a > method to solve a problem that customers have. To further clarify things in my mind, I went to Dell.au's website and chose a server we might conceivably buy where I work. I settled on a Poweredge R300. Then I went to the support page and found me a download for RHEL5. I'm actually running Scientfic Linux 5 on my desktop, so it's a fair comparison. I figure that what I find on the website's probably about what I'd be getting from Dell for that system. I then tried to investigate the package's contents. It was tricky, my enquiries were about this successful. 09:16 [summer@numbat ~]$ rpm -qp downloads/sg-3\[1\].5.34dell-1dkms.noarch.rpm --scripts 09:16 [summer@numbat ~]$ That is, no output. So I tried to test installing it: 09:16 [summer@numbat ~]$ sudo rpm -i --test downloads/sg-3\[1\].5.34dell-1dkms.noarch.rpm Password: error: File not found by glob: downloads/sg-3[1].5.34dell-1dkms.noarch.rpm 09:18 [summer@numbat ~]$ Okay, a bug in rpm. I did better when I renamed the file: 09:19 [summer@numbat ~]$ rpm -qlip sg.rpm Name : sg Relocations: (not relocatable) Version : 3.5.34dell Vendor: (none) Release : 1dkms Build Date: Wed Jun 13 23:40:10 2007 Install Date: (not installed) Build Host: berlin-4-hem Group : System/Kernel Source RPM: sg-3.5.34dell-1dkms.src.rpm Size : 84574 License: Unknown Signature : (none) Packager : DKMS <dkms-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Summary : sg 3.5.34dell dkms package Description : Kernel modules for sg 3.5.34dell in a DKMS wrapper. /usr/src/sg-3.5.34dell /usr/src/sg-3.5.34dell/sg-3.5.34dell-mktarball.dkms.tgz 09:19 [summer@numbat ~]$ So if I understand you correctly, this is pretty much what you'd be putting in the driver storage. I unpacked the rpm using rpm2cpio and find both a prebuilt kernel module, and what looks to be the source to recreate it. In this case we have a standard GPL-licenced Linux driver, with a one-line Dell patch. I suppose the system was certified at RHEL5.0. If it worked with RHEL5.0 then I don't see the need for RHEL5.0 drivers in usb-storage, unless RH declined to accept the patch, so I suppose that it was certified with this patch in place and that I'd need it to install RHEL5.0 and maybe CentOS5.0 and SL5.0. Supposing my suppositions are all well-founded, then it would be good to have the driver in USB storage, I'm very good at losing CDs, and even without that skill, where I work most of our computers are three years old before we get them (but then, in such a case, it would be reasonable to expect not to need the Dell driver). I'm still not keen on the idea of DKMS, it'd rather not be expected to maintain a C compiler on a server. < sandeep > We have binary versions for the drivers too then you will not need the C compilers on the server. I would prefer a yum repo at Dell, together with instructions for pinning so one gets only the Dell bits from Dell, but getting the updates from RH etc would be even better. <sandeep> That's a good idea for distributing drivers for hardware, it will work good for system already installed or partially installed and on the network. but what about the scenario when you will need a driver to recognise the new hardware (disk controller or NIC) to install the OS? -- Cheers John -- spambait 1aaaaaaa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Z1aaaaaaa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx -- Advice http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 You cannot reply off-list:-) _______________________________________________ Anaconda-devel-list mailing list Anaconda-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/anaconda-devel-list _______________________________________________ Anaconda-devel-list mailing list Anaconda-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/anaconda-devel-list
