Proposal: pci_driver() tags for dkms rpms

[Matt Domsch]

On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 11:27:04PM +0000, Paul Howarth wrote:
> > Sorry, no good answer here. Yum does the wrong thing in response to
> > multiple packages providing a dependency.
> 
> Yum has to make a arbitrary decision when this happens, and will pick
> the package with the shortest name I believe. I don't believe it's a
> problem though because any given system should not be pointing at
> repositories containing packages inappropriate for its own distribution,
> so there shouldn't be Novell format packages in a Fedora repository for
> instance.

The question:

Does the kernel already have an appropriate driver for my hardware?

is what we're trying to answer.  One way to answer that question is to
put Michael's Provides: pci_driver(foo) lines in the kernel RPMs.

If the answer were "no" (i.e the kernel doesn't have such a Provides
line), then having other (DKMS driver, Fedora driver, whatever)
packages in the repo that Provide this is all well and good.

If the answer were "yes" (i.e.  the kernel does have such a Provides
line), *and* there were a "newer" (DKMS driver, Fedora driver, ...)
package also available in the repo that provided a newer driver, then
the tools don't automatically "do the right thing" and upgrade the
driver.


As an extension then, could the Provides: lines look like:

  Provides: pci_driver(0x1028,0x1000) = kmod(megaraid_mbox) = 2.0.0.10

or something like that?  So we get both the version of the *driver*
and the name of the module that handles it, put there?  Would that
help?

Then Requires: pci_driver(0x1028,0x1000)
would need to resolve the "best" version on the right, which I'm sure
RPM doesn't do today...

-- 
Matt Domsch
Software Architect
Dell Linux Solutions linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux
Linux on Dell mailing lists @ http://lists.us.dell.com