Hi, I would like to propose the replacement of the current way of building external modules with DKMS(Dynamic Kernel Module Support Framework).
The current way things work, is that every kernel package needs to build and maintain separate packages for out of tree modules/drivers like ipw3945, madwifi, fglrx, etc. So every time the kernel is updated new packages of the all the modules also needs to be rebuild(23 for -suspend2). And when a new version of a module is released all the individual packages for each kernel also needs to be updated. DKMS does away with this, DKMS is a shell script the helps in building and maintaining out of tree kernel modules. By using DKMS and shipping the source version of the module instead, DKMS can rebuild the module every time the kernel is updated. So we only need to maintain one package pr. module and it works with all the kernels with have in arch. This also has the advantage of making it easier to build your own kernel or provide another flavor on AUR. As driver/module updates and rebuilds is no longer needed. It's also reduces the amount of packages that the arch community has to maintain. What I have done so far is made DKMS modules for fglrx, ipw3945, madwifi and virtualbox. When you install the dkms modules they will automatically build and install a module for each kernel you have installed. What is missing is a way to rebuild the modules when the kernel is updated, but I'm not quite sure how to do this? Would /etc/mkinitcpio.d/ be a good place to put it? What does people think of this idea? And would the maintainers of old packages be willing to adopt the new DKMS packages? The packages can be found on AUR, search for dkms(how do I make a link to a search?) Troels Liebe Bentsen _______________________________________________ arch mailing list [email protected] http://archlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/arch
