Strict kernel module dependencies (was: RPM dependency rationale (and kernel packages)?)

Axel Thimm Axel.Thimm at physik.fu-berlin.de
Tue Aug 19 17:49:38 UTC 2003


On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 01:23:11PM -0400, Jeff Johnson wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 07:04:21PM +0200, Jos Vos wrote:
> > Every package provides itself implicitly, as if the line
> > "Provides: foo = 5.0-2" was in the spec file.  This means that any
> > dependency on "foo", "foo = 5.0", or "foo = 5.0-2" is satisfied
> > (as well as relational dependencies, like "foo >= 5.0" etc.).
> > This is all the basic RPM dependency behaviour and pretty
> > straightforward.
> > [...]
> > It also is the case that every kernel package provides
> > "kernel = %{version}" explicitly.  AFAIK this is mainly done to let
> > kernel-smp, kernel-bigmem, etc. all "provide" the basic kernel too
> > (but Arjan can tell much more about this, see also our disussion
> > on https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=102639
> > earlier today).
> > 
> > In my case, I wanted to let a pseudo-package require specifically
> > "kernel = 2.4.20-18.9", to pull that kernel package in with APT
> > (more details on request) and I then detected that "kernel-2.4.20-8"
> > was good enough for rpm (and APT) to satisfy "kernel = 2.4.20-18.9".
> 
> Feature, or at least necessity for legacy compatibility.
> Before rpm-3.0.2, only Requires: and Conflicts: permitted versions.
> [...]
> And there are even better reasons for not changing rpm's behavior.
> 
> Add a file requires on a file in the kernel package that has both the
> Version: and Release: appended as suffix, almost every file in the
> package as both V-R appended.

I am using this workaround for the kernel modules I build, but it
still does not do an exact nevra dependency, i.e. arch is missing (but
it helped lowering support queries to a minimum, almost nobody has
multiple kernels installed differing only in arch).

Arjan, how about adding a new tag like
Provides: strictdep-kernel[-<flavour>]-%{_target_cpu} = %{?epoch:%{epoch}:}%{version}-%{release}
and letting kernel modules depend on that?

It won't spoil legacy behaviour and keep kernel module provider happy :)
-- 
Axel.Thimm at physik.fu-berlin.de
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