Driver Update Disk discussion

[Daniel O'Connor]

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 12:39, M. Warner Losh wrote:
> One does not need to patch the source tree at to pick up ports modules
> for a kernel rebuild.  One can build the ports modules as part of the
> kernel by simply defining PORTS_MODULES in a kernel config file.  In
> addition, one can specify absolute paths with MODULES_OVERRIDE.  One
> can also build modules outside the tree against a specific kernel (if
> they somehow depend on the config files).

I think PORTS_MODULES is a little suboptimal..

I have a patch set which allows a port to install KLD source in a directory 
and have it picked up during a build/install kernel. This has a few 
advantages over calling the ports tree from those makefiles. The prime one 
being that your source code does not change between upgrades without you 
saying so. This is matters since (for example) the newer nvidia driver does 
not work on some hardware the old driver does (eg Fx5200 Go). It also means 
that the kernel build/install does not result in non kernel things being 
altered.

The disadvantage is that the KLD ports need to be modified to install the 
source code in the right place (not hard) and that you will need to upgrade 
your ports tree to keep up with ABI changes if you update your source but 
IMHO it's better to make this sort of action explicit - otherwise the end 
user is in the position of not knowing what has changed on their system.

Also speaking of KLD ports.. I really wish they wouldn't install 
into /boot/modules (I patch so they don't) as it is a really good way to 
shoot yourself in the foot during an upgrade :(

-- 
Daniel O'Connor software and network engineer
for Genesis Software - http://www.gsoft.com.au
"The nice thing about standards is that there
are so many of them to choose from."
  -- Andrew Tanenbaum
GPG Fingerprint - 5596 B766 97C0 0E94 4347 295E E593 DC20 7B3F CE8C
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