Making Kernel Modules

punkrockguy318 · 2004-10-15 20:45:53

Maintaining kernel modules can be a hassle. You need to recompile after every kernel release or every gcc release, and you need to maintain three different versions, because Arch supports many kernels (kernel 2.6.x, 2.4.x, 2.6.xmm and other user contributed kernels like nitro). My idea is that maybe more kernel module packages are to be packaged like nvidia: Compiled at installtime, rather then makepkg time. The PKGBUILD would fetch the sources and put them in /opt/kernelmodules/modulename or something. Then the .install file would compile them and install them to the kernel. The remove in the .install file would then uninstall them. This would put a lot of stress off of the kernel maintainers, and users would just have to do a simple pacman -S my-kernel-module to get them to work after a kernel upgrade. After a kernel install it should let the user know to reinstall any 3rd party kernel modules (pacman -S nvidia, pacman -S mymodule).

What do you think of this idea?

phrakture · 2004-10-15 20:47:49

what kernel modules are you having a problem with?
I have never had an issue with this except with the nvidia drivers...

punkrockguy318 · 2004-10-15 20:54:37

phrakture wrote:

what kernel modules are you having a problem with?
I have never had an issue with this except with the nvidia drivers...

What? I'm not having a problem with any of them, I'm just suggesting a different way to package kernel modules... Maybe I didn't make that clear

phrakture · 2004-10-15 21:13:05

so you're trying to fix what isn't broken?

punkrockguy318 · 2004-10-15 21:22:08

I'm making a suggestion to make things much easier on pkg maintainers... Read the post

Dusty · 2004-10-15 22:04:37

punkrockguy318 wrote:

This would put a lot of stress off of the kernel maintainers, and users would just have to do a simple pacman -S my-kernel-module to get them to work after a kernel upgrade. After a kernel install it should let the user know to reinstall any 3rd party kernel modules (pacman -S nvidia, pacman -S mymodule).
What do you think of this idea?

It makes it harder for the user though, right?

right now, you pacman -Syu and your stock kernel gets updated (if you do stock kernels). with your way:

pacman -Syu
reboot
"oh crap, myModule won't load and I can't get my network"
pacman -S mymodule
reboot

if you compile your own kernel you should probably be maintaining your own modules too.

The nvidia installer package is substandard; its packaged that way because its not open source (ie: the license is substandard ). Its not generally a good idea to put stuff in post_install instead of having the package manager install them directly, as the files are no longer directly under pacman's control.

Dusty

phrakture · 2004-10-15 22:35:30

Besides the nvidia module, and maybe ndiswrapper, what other modules are there like this?

I agree with Dusty that this makes it much harder for the user - the package maintainer's job is to make installation easy - otherwise pacman would just download a tarball to some directory and say "go ahead an compile it"

While it is possible that this would be easier on package maintainers, it would be much more difficult to maintain a stable arch system. Thus, there is no net benefit....
Using a numerical scale:
Package Maintainers get an easier job : +3 (scale of -10 to 10)
Users have more packages to verify are correctly installed : -4 (same scale)
Large possiblity for system instabilities: -5 (same scale)
Total: -6

Of course, my numbers are speculation, but you get the idea

lanrat · 2004-10-16 13:38:08

I think punkrockguy318 means all kernel modules that go to /lib/modules/kernelversion. Also pacman -Ss kernel gives names of some of them. Another example is submount package (kernel module for automounting).

If you run pacman -Ss kernel you will notice that some dirvers/modules have "for the stock arch Kernel 2.6" in their description (BTW it's my fault that submount doesn't have this kind of description because first pkgbuild was made by me and then punkrockguy318 put it in his repo - sorry).

I think it's a good solution to put kernel version (or for example "for current stock arch kernel") in the description. If anyone wants to build his own kernel I think we can assume that he knows that all extra modules have to be rebuilt with abs.

If you want to make it more clear then maybe we should put a message in postinstall script that says "..... is working only with ....stock arch kernel...".

I think all kernel modules from official arch repos should have a coresponding version for each official arch stock kernel. For example there could be blahblah26 and blahblah24. This of course requires more work from package maintainers.
On the other hand arch is for "competent linux users" (I also include people who want to become "competent linux users") and maybe it's not really needed.

I know that compiling some programs inside postinstall script would make it easier for package mainainers but I agree that it would also do more harm than good (like losing a control other installed files).

Arch Linux

#1 2004-10-15 20:45:53

Making Kernel Modules

#2 2004-10-15 20:47:49

Re: Making Kernel Modules

#3 2004-10-15 20:54:37

Re: Making Kernel Modules

#4 2004-10-15 21:13:05

Re: Making Kernel Modules

#5 2004-10-15 21:22:08

Re: Making Kernel Modules

#6 2004-10-15 22:04:37

Re: Making Kernel Modules

#7 2004-10-15 22:35:30

Re: Making Kernel Modules

#8 2004-10-16 13:38:08

Re: Making Kernel Modules

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