Livna kernel dependency issue

Mauriat M mirandam at gmail.com
Mon Mar 5 18:36:07 UTC 2007


On 3/5/07, Charles Curley <charlescurley at charlescurley.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 03, 2007 at 11:33:07AM -0700, Charles Curley wrote:
> > I have two machines that use livna kmod packages, one kmod-ntfs, the
> > other a Radeon fglrx driver. I've been using the ntfs drivers
> > sucessfully for several months. I have just installed the Radeon card,
> > so cannot be sure this isn't a new installation issue.
>
> Followup. This morning's updates brought the missing kernel in, and I
> installed it. I now have two kernels of what apprear to be the same
> major, minor and patch numbers on my system:
>
> kernel-2.6.19-1.2911.6.4.fc6.i686
> kernel-2.6.19-1.2911.fc6.i686
>
> Huh?
>
> I went ahead with the normal stuff to get the driver enabled. Running
> glxgears indicated that the system now runs slower than it did before
> I installed the driver. Again, Huh?
>
> I finally rebooted. On the way up, the system locked up. I rebooted
> again. The system came up, and glxgears reports speeds ranging between
> 500 and 1000 fps, not exactly a steady rate. However, GoogleEarth now
> works at a reasonable rate.

Even though glxgears is not a benchmarking tool, you should let it sit
and it will eventually give a steady framerate. If there are problems
in 3D acceleration with a closed source driver from a third party
repository then those problems should be addressed with the proper
people. Fedora in general really has no say in these matters.

> * Why is a reboot necessary to install a driver module? Why are two
>  reboots necessary to install a driver module? This is not Windows.

A reboot is typically not necessary to install a module. However if
that module is linked to a specific kernel version, then you must be
booted into *that* specific kernel to use (load) it. Since there is no
way to restart a kernel, any kernel update will require a reboot to
start that kernel.

Some kernel modules don't work well being inserted into and removed
from the running kernel. Some can't be removed at all once inserted
without a reboot. Considering you are using a propreitary closed
source kernel module and with the limited information you provided, it
is hard to say whether or not all of your reboots were entirely
necessary.

> * Why do I need what appears to be two different installations of the
>  same kernel on my system?

These are 2 different kernels:
kernel-2.6.19-1.2911.fc6 was released Feb 13 (based on 2.6.19.3)
kernel-2.6.19-1.2911.6.4.fc6 was released Mar 2 (based on 2.6.19.5)

You don't need both of them. You 'yum' installed them. Typically more
than 1 kernel is left when using yum like this. Eventually old kernels
get removed.

> I'm getting irritated at Fedora being a bit too bleeding edge for my
> taste. I have work to do, and can't afford the time I spend farting
> around with this stuff. Maybe I should join Mr. Raymond over at
> Ubuntu.

It would appear from your previous email that the livna repository had
already synced and recompiled to 2.6.19-1.2911.6.4. Apparently the
particular fedora mirror you were using was out of sync. There will
always be lags in syncing mirrors.

I like Ubuntu. It is a fine distribution. If it better suits your
needs, by all means, please do use it.

-Mauriat




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