linux program with kernel module

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Fri, 2013-03-15 at 15:03 +0000, Ruben de Groot wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 10:42:41PM +0100, Ralf Mardorf typed:
> > On Thu, 2013-03-14 at 21:43 +0100, Istvan Gabor wrote:
> > > Can it run linux programs that have their own (linux) kernel module?
> > > If yes, how can I install such program, and how can I load the kernel module?
> > > 
> > > (If I know correctly nvidia drivers have their own kernel modules, and FreeBSD can
> > > run linux nvidia drivers).
> > 
> > Yesno.
> > 
> > You need to compile kernel modules to fit to the version of FreeBSD or
> > Linux.
> > 
> > I also call user space "FreeBSD" and "Linux", but it's _not_ correct to
> > do it. FreeBSD is a kernel and Linux is a kernel, not the whole system
> > is called Linux or FreeBSD and both kernels are available in different
> > versions.
> 
> You're right about Linux (being only a kernel). Not so for FreeBSD. FreeBSD
> is the name of the OS,, kernel plus userland. You can compare it to debian,
> another (linux based) OS.

Ok, thanks :).

However, I also should be more precise about compiling modules.
It might be that somebody did build a package, that does provide a
kernel module for a special kernel version.

I don't have experiences with FreeBSD and for FreeBSD I anyway build
from the ports tree, so I have no idea about packages for FreeBSD, but I
suspect that it's as it is for most Linux distros.

Sometimes packages do provide modules for the current default kernel. So
on major Linux distros you usually can install VBox from a package and
it will come with the kernel modules for the packaged default kernel of
the distro.