[Fedora-packaging] Re: atrpms kernel modules

[Ville Skyttä]

On Sun, 2006-07-23 at 20:01 +0200, Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 23, 2006 at 07:31:46PM +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> > 
> > Well, I stick to my opinion that "uname -r" in Name creates some
> > problems on its own and not worth the trouble.
> 
> But please be as fair as to admit that w/o uname-r in name the
> problems are several magnitudes worse.

Having been involved in designing, using, and maintaining schemes and
packages both with and without uname-in-name for years and discussing
the pros and cons to death several times, my opinion is that the
problems created by both are roughly equal, and certainly not different
by order of magnitude.

The result of the last discussion round and yet another redesign of the
kmod guidelines from scratch [0] has been accepted by a quite a few
interested parties, reaching apparent critical mass so that it's
actually possible to ship additional kernel modules in *some* usable and
maintainable form in FE.  I don't personally agree with every bit in the
current design, but I see nothing critically wrong with it either.  In
particular, I see no need to challenge the achieved consensus with the
controversial scheme change discussed in this thread, so -1.

>  rpm -U/-i will nuke or
> overwrite kernel modules of the running kernel in a uname-r-less
> scheme.

rpm -U behaves just as documented and just like with all other packages,
including the kernels, ie. upgrades them.  Yes, I'm aware of the nuances
that might make some say it's not the same.  Whatever, if you don't want
that behaviour, don't use -U.  kernel packages don't have
uname-r-in-name either, and people are perfectly capable of upgrading
their kernels with the rpm CLI.

Ditto, rpm -i behaves like for all other packages, it doesn't nuke or
overwrite anything.  Use --oldpackage in addition if you wish to deal
with modules for old kernels.

Sure, it's a bit difficult but not impossible, just use -e and -i, to
"safely" upgrade a kmod package for an old installed kernel.  But I
think shipping updated modules for old kernels is just not going to (and
one could argue should not) happen in FC/FE anyway.  Either way, I'm
certainly not losing any sleep over that.

[0] Like I've said before, I'm not going to participate in more 
    discussions about this unless specifically asked.  I think I was
    asked in this thread, so here goes, but don't expect further 
    replies.