kernel modules in RPM Fusion; we need a decision

[Denis Leroy]

Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>> To me, kmod can only be acceptable if AND ONLY IF the rebuild of the 
>> kmod packages is automated based on a RSS feed coming from Koji or 
>> Bodhi of some sort. i.e. guarantee a zero-time dependency break from 
>> kernel updates.
> 
> Impossible -- we want to sign rpms manually (juest like Fedora does; 
> they just showed why that is important). A lot of the other tasks for 
> rebuilding kmods are scripted, but not fully automated yet -- I have a 
> long todo list for RPM Fusion and other things seem to be way more 
> important to me.

Thorsten, thanks a lot for the clarification.

Understood, although we could at least trigger the builds from a bodhi 
RSS feed, so that they have a chance to get signed before the fedora 
update is pushed. This is merely an RFE, not really an issue of course...

> BTW, why do you care how quick kmod get released? You seem to be in 
> favour of dkms. It's counterpart is akmod so feel free just use that -- 
> the akmods won't be re-released when a new kernel shows up. And btw, 
> livna was quite good in shipping new kmods just-in-time for new kernels. 
> It was only a real problem recently when the buildsys was down for a few 
> days.
> 
> Kmod on the other hand provide an addition benefit that we would not 
> have with dkms: pre-compiled modules. That for example is important for 
> small machines for example -- a few livna users with the first-gen Asus 
> Eee PC for example were really glad that they got a pre-compiled 
> madwifi-kmod in livna-testing. Most of those users didn't want dkms or 
> akmods as they didn't want to install gcc and its deps on the samll SSD; 
> the users afaics also did not want to wait for the module to compile 
> (which takes quite a bit longer on small machines like the Eee PC).

I personally liked dkms because I found it intuitive and simple to 
package, however it sounds as though the kmod+akmod combo covers more 
use cases, so this is all good! (so another +1 for kmod+akmod)

-denis