[Fedora-packaging] Kernel modules packaged for dkms

[Matt Domsch]

On Mon, Oct 09, 2006 at 03:13:43PM +0200, Matthias Saou wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Regarding kernel modules, as many, I got tired of :
> 1) Packaging them as binary rpms, tracking new kernels to release new
> packages (it's almost impossible to track Rawhide btw).
> 2) Endless discussions about what packaging method is the best, upgrade
> paths, ugliness of versions inside names, common vs. kernel specific
> bits etc. etc.
> 
> So I decided to go for the dkms approach to install 3rd party kernel
> modules, and things got so much simpler. It's pretty obvious : If one
> can issue a simple "make" to get a required module, why go through so
> much complexity for rpm packages?
> 
> There are two possible discussions which can start here :
> 
> 1) What do Fedora packagers think of dkms? Up to now, no kernel modules
> packages using dkms have been released in Extras, nor in 3rd party
> repositories AFAIK. Maybe there are some good reasons, in which case
> I'm interested in knowing them.

The dell-software repo http://linux.dell.com/repo/software/
distributes openipmi, dcdbas, and dell_rbu for RHEL[34], SLES9, and
FC[34] because those distros didn't originally have them.  We've since
gotten those driver into kernel.org and therefore newer kernels and
distro versions, which has always been our goal all along - use DKMS
as a stop-gap until upstream and every distro kernel has a good-enough
version of each driver to not need to package them separately.

I'm glad for all the renewed interest, I had no idea how many people
were really packaging drivers using DKMS outside of Dell and our
immediate partners.  And yes, I owe Jon Masters some more time getting
DKMS fully up to speed with the work he's been doing with
kerneldrivers.org and KMPs.  I'm getting there, I promise!

Thanks,
Matt

-- 
Matt Domsch
Software Architect
Dell Linux Solutions linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux
Linux on Dell mailing lists @ http://lists.us.dell.com