kmod-nvidia173xx: two different version installed in F10 at one "yum update"

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 13:21 +0200, Joachim Backes wrote:

> 
> rpm -qa '*kmod-nvidia*'
> kmod-nvidia-173xx-2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10.i686-173.14.18-1.fc10.1.i686

The driver built for kernel-2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10.i686.  This
package's name is kmod-nvidia-173xx-2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10.i686 and its
version is 173.14.18-1.fc10.1 (the nvidia driver version and fedora
version).

> kmod-nvidia-173xx-2.6.27.19-170.2.35.fc10.i686-173.14.18-1.fc10.i686

The driver built for kernel-2.6.27.19-170.2.35.fc10.i686.  This
package's name is kmod-nvidia-173xx-2.6.27.19-170.2.35.fc10.i686 and its
version is the same as above.

> kmod-nvidia-173xx-173.14.18-1.fc10.1.i686

This is a generic package with no driver, but with dependencies that
will force installation of the correct driver package after a new kernel
is installed.  Its name is kmod-nvidia-173xx and its version is the same
as above.

> 
> Can somebody explain this?

The whole thing is some magic with names and version numbers and
dependencies to make sure that you can get a kernel without the driver,
but that once a driver is available, it will be added to updates
automatically.

I don't know how it works, exactly.  Maybe someone else?

There are also akmod-nvidia packages that automatically recompile the
drivers for updated kernels so you don't have to wait to download them.

> 
> All comments are welcome
> 
-- 
                Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs