akmod vs. kmod

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

On 28.06.2008 20:36, Denis Leroy wrote:
> Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>> On 15.06.2008 18:48, Richi Plana wrote:
>>> I've noticed that in livna, there are two kernel modules available for
>>> nvidia: akmod-nvidia and kmod-nvidia. Are they exclusive of each other
>>> (iow, only one should be installed on a system)?
>> Nope.
>>
>>> My understanding is
>>> that akmods are compiled whenever any new kernel is installed. Is that
>>> correct?
>> akmod packages contain the kernel module sources and a RPM Spec file (a 
>> kmod src.rpm to be precise); the akmods scripts will use this to compile 
>> a kmod that gets installed automatically
>>
>>> Are there instructions on how to use akmods? (ie. when to
>>> update kernels and when to reboot)
>> /me tends to say "Just do it."
>>
>> Normally it should "just work" by installing a akmod package; the kmods 
>> will then get build on kernel install or during startup on the next reboot
> 
> Thorsten, do you have some doc on how akmod works somewhere ?

Not really; I never found time for it; I know, that sucks :-/ Sorry.

I only wrote a small bit you can find at
http://rpmfusion.org/Packaging/KernelModules/Akmods

Ohh, and some (but not all :-/ ) of the commands in the akmods package 
have a man page.

> Or should 
> we just look at the existing ones and figure things out :-)

It's mainly a standard kmod package, which is documented in
http://rpmfusion.org/Packaging/KernelModules/Kmods2

The main differences are

* "for kernel_version in %{kernel_versions} ; do" becomes
   "for kernel_version in %{?kernel_versions} ; do"

* a akmods macro needs to be added to the %install section

But yeah, in the end looking at one of the existing packages is the best 
way forward.

> i'll try to submit an akmod version of open-vm-tools...

Look at the archives for this list; some people did kmod packages 
already for this; should be easy to adjust them to the newest kmod stuff 
which brings akmods support.

Cu
knurd