f8 nvidia - dynamic kernel module support

Jon Nettleton jon.nettleton at gmail.com
Tue Dec 4 01:20:00 UTC 2007


On Tue, 2007-11-13 at 21:12 +1100, David Timms wrote:
> Mitsuho Iizuka wrote:
> > BTW, what is DKMS ? Direct Kernel .... ???
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6896
> 
> > What differences are there between livna and freshrpm nvidia driver ?
> I haven't checked lately, but it used to be:
> - livna format is a kmod rpm for a specific kernel version. If the 
> kernel changes, you need to wait for livna to publish a new kmod suited 
> only to the new kernel. They get to do the compile, test release process.
> 
> - freshrpms format is a dkms module rpm. Along with requiring compiler 
> tools and kernels headers installed, dkms detects a change in kernel 
> during system boot up, and rebuilds the kernel interface to suit the new 
> kernel. Mostly this just works - maybe an extra 30 seconds to compile it 
> the first time you run a new kernel version.
> 

I am working on getting dkms integrated so modules are built post-kernel
update instead of on boot.  I think this should be a much more dynamic
and elegant solution.  My major use case is, a module won't build
against a new kernel you can prompt the user to choose if they would
like to continue to boot the current kernel instead of dealing with one
that has broken video drivers.

Jon




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