Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] A proposal regarding packages that provide kernel modules

[Chris Gianelloni]

On Tue, 2003-09-16 at 07:33, Georgi Georgiev wrote:
> Installing packages that provide kernel modules in Gentoo is a real pain.
> Several packages that are among the annoying ones are mplayer and svgalib. They
> only provide a single module, but would require complete recompilation on a
> kernel upgrade. Since they are not SLOTted, reverting to an older version of
> the kernel requires another recompilation.
>
> I want to suggest a different system in respect to installing kernel modules.
>
> - Kernel modules are not to be recorded in /var/db/pkg/category/package/CONTENT
>   at all. This is the point that may be the most conflicting, but I personally
>   do not think that this would affect things a great deal. The
>   /lib/modules/<version> directories have plenty of files that are not recorded
>   anywhere anyway (files created by "make -C /usr/src/linux/ modules_install)
>
> - Introduce new functions that can be included in ebuilds called something like
>   compile_modules() install_modules(). Also introduce a --modules (or similar)
>   switch to portage that will only execute those functions and thus effectively
>   only install the modules that a package provides.
>
> - emerge --modules cannot be executed if a package is not emerged already.
>
> - Emerging a package would, of course, also install the modules. (i.e. "emerge
>   --modules" is a subset of "emerge")
>
> - Since emerge --modules can only be run on an already emerged package, and
>   since the files it installs are not recorded in CONTENTS there is no need to
>   touch the files in /var/db/pkg on an "emerge --modules".
>
> - Emerging a package that provides kernel modules records the package to
>   /var/cache/edb/modules in a manner similar to world. This way the user can
>   simply "emerge --modules modules" and they can install modules to their new
>   kernel.
>
> Expecting your comments and I hope we reach some kind of solution.

I like it.

As it stands right now, when I use a new kernel, I have to remerge
nvidia-kernel, lm-sensors, cisco-vpnclient-3des, pcmcia-cs, and re-run
/opt/vmware/bin/vmware-config.pl to rebuild all the modules.  This can
be a serious pain and something I forget to do quite often, especially
when testing out kernels.  My current solution is to move all of the
modules that are built into a new location under /lib/modules/<ver> to
keep them from being automatically removed with the next merge.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Developer, Gentoo Linux
Games Team

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