[elrepo] Anyway to install kmod-ath9k_htc without it forcing a kernel update?

[Phil Perry]

On 01/07/14 16:07, Michael B wrote:

> 
> Thank you Phil and Manuel (wolfy),
> 
>> I'm wondering why you are unwilling/unable to update your system
> 
> Figured I'd get this question.  Short answer:  Clients.
> 
> The build in question is the dev box to support production environments that I 
> don't have control over.  Clients aren't willing to pay for the production 
> rebuild, recompiles, and (mostly) the resultant QA time, so this box is stuck 
> at the lowest common denominator.
> 

Fair enough.

>> If a driver uses such kernel symbols 
>> and these symbols change between kernel releases
> 
> If I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, there was a major symbol change 
> sometime between 6.3 and 6.4 and therefor almost all the drivers on ELRepo 
> are going to have this issue?
> 

Red Hat did a major backport in 6.4, backporting the wireless stack from
~ kernel 3.5 IIRC. Anyway, the upshot is that 6.4 supports newer
wireless drivers that are possible in 6.3. In very simplistic wireless
terms, 6.3 is like a 2.6.32 kernel whereas 6.4 is like a 3.5 kernel.

In some cases we can simply rebuild the driver against the older kernel
for you and it will work, but in this case it's not possible to backport
this driver to the 6.3 kernel as it simply doesn't contain the updated
wireless kernel ABIs necessary.

> Was there a package for the ath9k built prior to the symbol change?  And if 
> so, where could I find it?
> 

Yes, there was an old package forked from the wireless compat backport
project, but I'm not sure if it ever worked.

> == And/Or ==
> 
> While this would be a long shot, would you happen to know which USB chipset(s) 
> have packages available for 6.3?  (Bonus points for ones with external 
> antennas!)
> 
>> Driver ABC working on kernel version XYZ
> 
> I had done a pretty extensive research to identify the Atheros as working on 
> 2.6.32, but the page (lost the link) didn't resolve deeper.  If I understand 
> this ELRepo page correctly, http://elrepo.org/tiki/Driver+Versions , this 
> would be the page to identify how old a kernel a given ELRepo driver will 
> work on?
> 
> Is so, could someone add the ath9k_htc with the full kernel version(s)?
> 
> Probably need to go offline as I'd be willing to help clean it up; that page 
> needs further columns to be actually useful:  Repository Channel, Bus, 
> Firmware link, and probably some others I wouldn't mind helping with.
> 
>> http://elrepo.org/tiki/DeviceIDs
> 
> This page could use the command for USB identification:
> 
> [user at elrepo]$ /usr/bin/lsusb
> 
>> Red Hat Extended Update Support (EUS)
> 
> How much do they generally cost?  I'm reasonably sure Red Hat isn't adverse to 
> taking money for the last set of updates...
> 
> Thanks,
> Michael