Andreas Robinson wrote:
On Mon, 2009-06-01 at 11:34 +0100, Alan Jenkins wrote:
On 6/1/09, Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 00:15, Andreas Robinson <andr345@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
depends _modulename_ _dependency1_ _dependency2_ ...
This command allows you to add one or more additional dependencies to a
module. *modprobe* will attempt to insert them in order, from left to
right, before dealing with _modulename_. If any dependency fails to
install, *modprobe* will stop, unless it was already in the kernel or
blacklisted.
I guess we should not fail, like in case the module is not compiled
for the current kernel, all should work just fine. In many cases
"depends" will be used to make sure that the module listed as a
dependency will work correctly, and not that the loaded module would
fail if the dependency is not resolved.
*modprobe* treats each module as if it had been specified on the command
line. Thus, _modulename_ and any of the dependency names can be aliases
and the dependencies can have their own *depends* commands. *modprobe*
will stop if it finds a circular dependency.
Sounds good.
------
Comments are very much welcomed. If you know of any useful synonyms for
"dependency" that'd be neat too. It's not that this text is meant to be
poetry, but some variety would be nice. :)
Hmm, since we don't really "depend" on another module in most cases,
we might want something like "softdepend", prerequire", "preload"?.
I like "softdepend". It leads to the noun "softdep".
One softdep, several softdeps ...
Thanks,
Kay
pre- something sounds like a good idea. Because I think we want
post-<something> as well.
$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/oss-compat
install snd-pcm modprobe --ignore-install snd-pcm $CMDLINE_OPTS && {
modprobe --quiet snd-pcm-oss ; : ; }
...
I don't know if this specific config is sane, but I think it makes
sense in general. snd-pcm-oss is optional, but the idea is that users
may be surprised if it is not loaded. It has to be loaded _after_
snd-pcm, because it depends on it.
How about "pre-requisites" or "prereqs" for the modules that are loaded
before and either "post-requisites", "postreqs" (which isn't a real word
unfortunately), or "supplements" for what comes after.
With this vocabulary, the new syntax would look like this:
softdepend modname [ --pre softdep ... ] [ --post softdep ... ]
and your example would be written as
softdepend snd-pcm --post snd-pcm-oss
Sounds good to me. Maybe it's a little verbose, but we can only spend
so much time debating names :-).
Thanks
Alan
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