On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:32:25AM -0700, Adam Williamson wrote: > On Fri, 2009-05-29 at 10:00 -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote: > > On 05/29/2009 09:47 AM, Adam Williamson wrote: > > > > > There is a solution to this particular point, which it seems many who > > > use kmods don't seem to know about: akmods. Install the akmod for your > > > kmod, and if the pre-built kmod hasn't yet been updated when a new > > > kernel is released, the akmod handles the problem (it gets automatically > > > built at boot time). > > > > > I've used dkms (the infrastructural package is in Fedora although > > there's no modules in fedora to use it). It seems similar to what you > > describe. > > Yes, vanilla DKMS works like this: it doesn't use pre-built binaries at > all, it's just about wrapping the module source up into a convenient > lump and having a bit of infrastructure to automatically compile it > during startup if appropriate. If you have a package that contains pre-built binaries, DKMS will happily use those. We use that model on the "Enterprise" distros all the time. > > > That doesn't address all the other problems, of course, which are valid. > > > And it doesn't help if the new kernel happens to have changed the > > > interface somehow so the module source doesn't build any more. But there > > > > This ended up being the blocker for my personal use. For FESCo, I > > remember the requirement that gcc and other build tools were needed on > > an end user system was a big issue. > > Yeah, that's the drawback to a pure source approach. Agreed. > Mandriva took DKMS and hacked it up so that it creates both pre-built > binaries and 'source' packages (much like kmods and akmods in the kmod > system), so that if you have a system without the build chain things > will work as long as you're running a supported kernel and the updates > are in sync, but if you have the whole build chain, the 'source' DKMS > package covers you if you're running a different kernel or whatever. RPM > Fusion does much the same by providing both kmods and akmods. I do wish MDV would send such patches upstream... I always had to go hunting for patches. FWIW, the Linux Foundation Driver Backport Working Group [1] has standardized on using DKMS as a developer tool for building [a]kmod-like packages (KMPs in Novell terminology). But of course, that's still targeted at backporting fixes / drivers to "older" kernels in the "stable" Enterprise distros. DKMS and related tools really don't make sense for use as a delivery mechanism for Fedora and other rapidly changing non-commercial-supported distributions . Different target audience, different expected experience. [1] http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/driver-backport -- Matt Domsch Technology Strategist, Dell Office of the CTO linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
