Problems with kernel updates needing non-kernel changes

[Jeremy Katz]

On Thu, 2007-03-22 at 12:54 -0400, Chuck Ebbert wrote:
> 1) mkinitrd may need changing, e.g. the raid4, raid5 and raid6
>    modules were combined into raid456 a while ago, breaking
>    mkinitrd completely on raid machines.

There are a pile of other userspace packages that also commonly need
updates.  alsa stuff, pcmcia, kudzu, udev/hal (less these days), ...

> 2) some modules may now work that were broken, but they need
>    new options, like snd-hda-intel which now works on my acer
>    notebook if "probe_mask=1" is added to the module options.

This is just a case of broken drivers.  Having to manually
(modprobe.conf counts :) specify a module option to make a driver work
means that the driver is broken -- these things _have_ to be
auto-detected.  Punting it to the user just isn't practical or
reasonable.

> 3) like (2) but options may need to be removed. suddenly drivers
>    that worked refuse to load becuase they no longer recognize
>    options that used to be valid.

And this is really a breakage of the "interface" exposed to userspace
and really should be beaten down as driver breakage.  Trying to handle
things like this is a losing battle.

Jeremy