DKMS on Ubuntu

[Alexander Brinkman]

Hi all,

We are using Ubuntu (6.06 LTS) on our Dell Precisions which (for the
newer models) requires an updated tg3 (NIC) driver. Using DKMS for this
works fine, however we've noticed a minor issue: when no driver is found
during boot the module is compiled, but it is done too late in the boot
process to have any effect. Though an extra reboot solves this it is not
the most graceful solution ;).

For our tg3 module there seem to be two changes that solve this
permanently:

First, the dkms_autoinstaller script in init.d needs to run as early as
possible; on Ubuntu 6.06 this would probably be in runlevel S, number
23. Though I know nothing of debian packaging if I'm not mistaken this
can be done in the rules file with:

dh_installinit --name dkms_autoinstaller --params start 23 S .

Second, the new compiled module is not automatically loaded by Ubuntu
(perhaps because of the old one, though at build time it is not in
memory). Adding the following code after the depmod stuff in the dkms
script makes it work though:

if ! [ "`lsmod | grep -w $module`" = "" ]; then
  rmmod $module
fi
modprobe $module

Brgds,
  Alexander Brinkman,
  MARIN.