RFC: kernel-modules in Fedora Extras

Ralf Corsepius rc040203 at freenet.de
Sat Jan 7 06:25:37 UTC 2006


On Fri, 2006-01-06 at 18:17 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> Am Freitag, den 06.01.2006, 18:04 +0100 schrieb Ralf Corsepius:
> > On Fri, 2006-01-06 at 17:26 +0100, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> > > Am Freitag, den 06.01.2006, 11:12 -0500 schrieb Dan Williams:
> > 
> > > > Where it gets more interesting is if you want to build an updated SRPM
> > > > for a kernel that's not the most recent.
> > > 
> > > In the past most people involved in the discussions said: Only build for
> > > the latest kernel. 
> > People will not be able to update unless you build for all kernels.
> 
> This is a yum problem and will hopefully be fixed by the plugin (and if
> the problem you are referring to even exists with the new standard is
> doubtful).
I think we are talking pass each other. 

The problem I am talking about is not a yum problem, it's a general
packaging policy problem, concerning "parallel installation", closely
related to compat-library packages.

However, unlike for library-packages, where parallel installation is an
exception, for kernels and kernel-modules, parallel installation is the
rule (cf. below).

> > Consider the current nvidia disaster people are facing with the kernel
> > drivers on livna.
> 
> You mean this "disaster" that is around for ~two years already?
If you mean that kernel-module updates with livna modules have never
worked smoothly with yum, yes.

>  Seems people ignored it for a long time and it works mostly fine for
> a lot of people. 
It doesn't work for anybody. The fedora-users@ list is filled with
postings from people complaining about these issues ever since fedora
exists.

> (if people wonder what we are talking about see
> http://bugzilla.livna.org/show_bug.cgi?id=725 )

Let me demonstrate the problem, as it currently happens:

Given a clean FC4 system with livna's nvidia packages installed, not
having been updated for some weeks (During this time, a kernel and a
kernel-module/userspace library update has taken place)

# rpm -qa 'kernel*' nvidia-glx
kernel-2.6.14-1.1644_FC4
nvidia-glx-1.0.8174-0.lvn.1.4
kernel-module-nvidia-2.6.14-1.1644_FC4-1.0.8174-0.lvn.1.4


# yum update
...
Resolving Dependencies
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Package kernel.i686 0:2.6.14-1.1653_FC4 set to be installed
---> Package nvidia-glx.i386 0:1.0.8178-0.lvn.1.4 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Dependency: kernel-module-nvidia = 1.0.8178-0.lvn.1.4 for package: nvidia-glx
--> Processing Dependency: nvidia-glx = 0:1.0.8174 for package: kernel-module-nvidia-2.6.14-1.1644_FC4
--> Restarting Dependency Resolution with new changes.
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Package kernel-module-nvidia-2.6.14-1.1653_FC4.i686 0:1.0.8178-0.lvn.1.4 set to be updated
--> Running transaction check
--> Processing Dependency: nvidia-glx = 0:1.0.8174 for package: kernel-module-nvidia-2.6.14-1.1644_FC4
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Error: Missing Dependency: nvidia-glx = 0:1.0.8174 is needed by package kernel-module-nvidia-2.6.14-1.1644_FC4

=> A required package is missing. yum is correct in aborting.

Could you please explain, how this kind of breakage is solved with FC5,
your kernel-module RFC and the yum-plugin you mentioned?




The only way I see, is to add the missing packages to the repos, i.e. to
rebuild the kernel-modules and module-userspace-libs for all kernels
having ever been shipped for a Fedora release:

# yum update --enablerepo=local
..
Resolving Dependencies
--> Populating transaction set with selected packages. Please wait.
---> Package kernel-module-nvidia-2.6.14-1.1644_FC4.i686 0:1.0.8178-0.lvn.1.4 set to be updated
---> Package kernel.i686 0:2.6.14-1.1656_FC4 set to be installed
---> Package nvidia-glx.i386 0:1.0.8178-0.lvn.1.4 set to be updated
...
Installing:
 kernel                  i686       2.6.14-1.1656_FC4  updates-released   14 M
Updating:
 kernel-module-nvidia-2.6.14-1.1644_FC4  i686       1.0.8178-0.lvn.1.4  local          1.5 M
 nvidia-glx              i386       1.0.8178-0.lvn.1.4  livna             3.9 M
...

I guess, this is what I assume you are referring to as "yum bug": Yum
updates the kernel, but doesn't add the kernel-module corresponding to
the "new being installed" kernel.

Ralf





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