[elrepo-devel] real kmod versions

[Farkas Levente]

thanks you for your detailed explanation. which is not help for me but
make it clear:-(

On 10/06/2011 09:01 PM, Phil Perry wrote:
> On 06/10/11 13:49, Farkas Levente wrote:
>> hi,
>> how can i know which is the real version of a kmod in elrepo? eg there
>> is a coretemp-kmod-1.1-9 in elrepo. is it newer then the latest kernel
>> in rhel-5.7? there is page:
>> http://elrepo.org/tiki/kmod-coretemp
>> which said it's newer then in 5.4, but what about 5.7? i also look into
>> the source but that's do not help me a lot:-(
>> and the same apply to w83627ehf, w83627hf, it87 etc....
>> it's be nice to keep and up-to-date table about rhel-5.x version and
>> elrepo kmod version comparision.
>> regards.
>>
> 
> There is a page here:
> 
> http://elrepo.org/tiki/Driver+Versions
> 
> but I'm afraid it's not very up to date, at least for the drivers you 
> mention above. But it's a Wiki, so if anyone wants to maintain it, 
> please ask and you will be granted the necessary permissions.
> 
> For drivers versions backported in the kernel, it's difficult. For 
> example, most (maybe all) of the drivers you list above have no internal 
> version number associated with them in the kernel so it's not a trivial 
> task to track them or know which kernel RH backported them from, other 
> than examining the source code to see which patches have been 
> backported. As for our kmod packages, I always update the changelog to 
> show the latest patches and/or which kernel the driver was backported 
> from, so that should be considered the definitive source of information. 
> Our package version numbers are largely meaningless (at least for 
> backported kernel drivers), other than where an internal version number 
> does exist and then we will use it.
> 
> For example:
> 
> $ rpm -q --changelog kmod-coretemp
> 
> * Sat Feb 19 2011 Philip J Perry <phil at elrepo.org> - 1.1-9.el5.elrepo
> - Backported from kernel-2.6.37.1
> - kABI compatible with kernel >= 2.6.18-238.el5
> - No longer compatible with xen kernels
> - Include patches through [2010-10-25]
> - Revert "fix initialization of coretemp" [2010-09-24]
> - Revert "register alternate sibling upon CPU removal" [2010-09-24]
> 
> 
> $ rpm -q --changelog kmod-it87
> 
> * Sun Aug 07 2011 Philip J Perry <phil at elrepo.org> - 1.1-9.el5.elrepo
> - add the docs.
> - Rebase to kernel-2.6.39.4
> - Fix label group removal [2011-08-03]
> - Use pr_fmt and pr_<level> [2011-01-12]
> 
> 
> For the backported modules I currently maintain (coretemp, it87, 
> k10temp, w83627ehf, w83627hf, f71882fg, joydev, thinkpad_acpi, udlfb), I 
> try to check for new patches for each new kernel release. That said, it 
> is getting harder to backport patches for each new kernel release, 
> particularly on RHEL5. For example, many new patches in kernel-3.0 
> failed for coretemp and it87 so for those drivers it might be a case 
> that we continue to backport patches from 2.6.39.x so long as they build 
> but recognise we are nearing the end of the road for supporting some 
> drivers.
> 
> Generally, our drivers are newer than those currently available in RHEL 
> and we will continue to provide and update them for as long as there's a 
> need. As always, if the RHEL kernel driver works for you then you should 
> use that. When RHEL drivers catch up or become newer and we no longer 
> wish to maintain the driver in elrepo, we will deprecate our kmod 
> package in favour of the distro kernel driver. For example, we recently 
> did this with kmod-sata_via when the native kernel driver in RHEL-6.1 
> contained the backported fix that was addressed in our kmod release.
> 
> So the bottom line is that it's not easy to do any direct comparisons, 
> especially for native kernel drivers - the changelog will tell you which 
> kernel the elrepo driver is backported from but it's not so easy to 
> determine that information for the kernel driver unless you're tracking 
> the source code. What I can tell you for the hwmon drivers that you list 
> above is that Red Hat did a large backport of the /hwmon branch in the 
> RHEL-5.5 release and, looking back at my notes from my testing of the 
> 5.5-beta release, the code seemed to have been backported from 
> ~kernel-2.6.26 released somewhere around August 2008. I don't think 
> those drivers have had a significant update since although the odd 
> individual patch may have slipped through.
> 
> For many vendor drivers that are also in the kernel, such as the Intel 
> nic drivers that Alan maintains for example, it's a lot easier because 
> the vendor's driver version numbers are used. There we can see (from the 
> Wiki page above, or from modinfo) that the Intel e1000e driver is 
> currently at version 1.6.2 in elrepo, 1.3.10 in RHEL5 and 1.2.20 in 
> RHEL6 so it's really easy to make direct comparisons (bet you weren't 
> expecting to see newer drivers in the RHEL5 kernel than the RHEL6 kernel).
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Phil
> 
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-- 
  Levente                               "Si vis pacem para bellum!"