f8 nvidia - dynamic kernel module support
Serguei Miridonov
mirsev at cicese.mx
Tue Nov 13 17:03:54 UTC 2007
On Tuesday 13 November 2007, David Timms wrote:
> Mitsuho Iizuka wrote:
> > BTW, what is DKMS ? Direct Kernel .... ???
>
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6896
>
> > What differences are there between livna and freshrpm
> > nvidia driver ?
>
> I haven't checked lately, but it used to be:
> - livna format is a kmod rpm for a specific kernel version.
> If the kernel changes, you need to wait for livna to publish
> a new kmod suited only to the new kernel. They get to do the
> compile, test release process.
>
> - freshrpms format is a dkms module rpm. Along with
> requiring compiler tools and kernels headers installed, dkms
> detects a change in kernel during system boot up, and
> rebuilds the kernel interface to suit the new kernel. Mostly
> this just works - maybe an extra 30 seconds to compile it
> the first time you run a new kernel version.
>
> DaveT.
Not sure if this is a good idea to compile the module at boot
time. However, why not think about other idea: Fedora file
system will have something
like /lib/modules/aliens/<kmod-name> directory with all source
and firmware binaries (if necessary) required to compile
foreign non GPL modules (nvidia, vmware, etc.) for new kernel.
Then, when new kernel is installed, yum/rpm will start a
script to compile modules found in that tree using new
kernel-devel tree. This is much safer and any
incompatibilities could be resolved or logged before booting
new kernel.
Will it work?
Serguei.
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