Re: What do these rpms do?

[Kevin Fenzi]

On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 22:30:20 -0800
"Suresh Govindachar" <sgovindachar(a)yahoo.com&gt; wrote:

>  
>    Kevin Fenzi wrote:
>    >> On Sat, 26 Feb 2011 07:29:02 -0800
>    >> "Suresh Govindachar" wrote:
>    >>
>    >> Please explain the role played by the material in each
>    >> of the following three rpms found on rpmfusion:
>  
>    I was able to look inside two of the three rpms -- although
>    commands like rpm2cpio foo.rmp | cpio -idmv failed to extract
>    the following rpms either rhel5 or fc5, they could be
>    extracted using 7zip on Win XP! 
Yes, the rpm format has changed since rhel5/fc5. You will need a more
modern fedora to extract things. 

>    >> 1) broadcom-wl-5.60.48.36-1.fc13.noarch.rpm
>    >> 
>    >>    Common files for Broadcom 802.11 STA driver
>    >> 
>    >>    This package contains the license, readme and
>    >>    configuration files for the Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA
>    >>    Driver for WiFi, a linux device driver for use with
>    >>    Broadcom's BCM4311-, BCM4312-, BCM4321-, and
>    >>    BCM4322-based hardware.
>  
>    Contains:
>       /etc/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl-blacklist.conf
>       /usr/share/doc/broadcom-wl-5.60.48.36/LICENSE.txt
>       /usr/share/doc/broadcom-wl-5.60.48.36/README.txt
>  
>    cat of broadcom-wl-blacklist.conf
>       # modules blacklisted for broadcom-wl
>       blacklist bcm43xx
>       blacklist ssb
>       blacklist b43
>       blacklist ndiswrapper
>  
>    >> 2) kmod-wl-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.x86_64-5.60.48.36-2.fc14.2.x86_64.rpm
>    >> 
>    >>    wl kernel module(s) for 2.6.35.6-48.fc14.x86_64
>    >> 
>    >>    This package provides the wl kernel modules built for
>    >>    the Linux kernel 2.6.35.6-48.fc14.x86_64 for the x86_64
>    >>    family of processors.
>  
>    Contains:
>       /lib/modules/2.6.35.6-48.fc14.x86_64/extra/wl/wl.ko
>  
>    >> 3) kmod-wl-5.60.48.36-2.fc14.2.x86_64.rpm
>    >> 
>    >>    Metapackage which tracks in wl kernel module for newest kernel
>    >> 
>    >>    This is a meta-package without payload which sole
>    >>    purpose is to require the wl kernel module(s) for the
>    >>    newest kernel.  to make sure you get it together with a
>    >>    new kernel.
>  
>    The cpio file in the rpm (viz.,
>  kmod-wl-5.60.48.36-2.fc14.2.x86_64.cpio) could not be read!  I
>  suppose that is what the rpm's author means by "package without
>  payload". 
Yes, it's an empty package that simply requires the right kmod for your
currently running kernel. 

>    I copied the descriptions from rpmfusion;  I had to extract
>    the rpms to understand what they were about! 
rpm -qli should provide that info as well. 

>    > The common subpackage has the docs and such. The versioned
>    > kmod is one for a specific kernel, and the generic kmod-wl
>    > subpackage is to allow you to pull in the latest specific
>    > kmod version. ;) 
>  
>    I still don't understand how
>         kmod-wl-5.60.48.36-2.fc14.2.x86_64.rpm 
>    helps achieve what it is supposed to help achieve. 
It means you can: 

yum install kmod-wl

and it will download that package and see that it requires the specific
version for your kernel. So you don't have to: 

yum install kmod-wl-2.6.35.6-48.fc14.x86_64-5.60.48.36-2.fc14.2.x86_64

which you might note is a bit more difficult to type. :) 

kevin