Nameing guideline for external kernel-modules in fedora(.us)

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

Am Mi, den 17.12.2003 schrieb Michael Schwendt um 08:09:
> On 16 Dec 2003 11:57:54 -0800, Fernando Pablo Lopez-Lezcano wrote:
> 
> > IMHO the problem of users picking up the wrong package should be solved
> > with proper dependencies so that it is not possible to install the wrong
> > package at all.
> 
> SMP users often have the UP kernel installed, too.

Often, but not always. 

>  Since ALSA is optional,
> you cannot force them to install kernel modules for both SMP and UP
> kernel. In case they pick the wrong package (because they don't pay
> attention to the "smp" in the package name), it won't work.

Yes. But this is maybe one false download -- if we always include SMP
and UP modules in the same package all users without SMP waste download
bandwidth. An downloading 1,2 MB (current size of kernel-module-alsa) or
2,4 MB is still something different for lots of users.  

> > If you try to install a particular kernel module and the
> > matching kernel for it is not there, RPM should refuse to install it.
> 
> Of course.

Currently it depends on the file

/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.22-1.2129.nptl[smp]

Is that sufficient? I think we should check the arch somehow, too. Will
check

> > If you try to install the wrong architecture RPM should refuse to install
> > it.
> 
> Do you suggest putting the %arch into the package name, too?
> (I don't see the kernel rpm provide anything like that, though)
> 
> > This means no shared up and smp modules in the same package. Each
> > package has the modules that are needed by one and only one kernel
> > (which BTW is in its own package). 
> 
> It's like that currently. But with SMP and UP in a single package, it's
> impossible to pick the wrong one. The package just gets larger.

I still think the drawbacks of this are larger then the advantages. And
I think we're confusing lot's of users this way since most (all?) other
currently build separate packages for smp and up kernels.

And I still are not convinced that 

kernel-module

as prefix is enough, a 

kernel-module-smp

is only redundant and makes life harder. A simple bash script currently
looks   

for i in $(rpm -qa | grep -e "kernel-2.4" -e "kernel-smp-2.4"  );
do
	echo "you need package kernel-module-alsa-\
	$(echo ${i} |cut -d - -f 2- )<PUT_VERSION_HERE>.\
	$(rpm -q --queryformat '%{ARCH}' ${i}).rpm ";
done

Adding an "if smp; then..." somewhere wouldn't be that hard -- but: Why
complicate it? 

But I'm not that fixed on this point, but packaging UP and SMP into one
package feels very wrong to me.


CU
thl

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