On Mon, Feb 18, 2008 at 11:48:41AM -0600, Matt Domsch wrote:
> Also from a support perspective, it becomes more complicated to
support
> kernel installs when random user scripts can cause unknown behaviour.
This has been the argument against DKMS for 5 years now. However, in
those 5 years, how many support calls has Red Hat taken where a
DKMS-ified driver turned out to be the problem? Where it wasn't
obvious what was happening? 'dkms status' is even part of sysreport,
and has been for at least 3 years.
I was unaware of this. But in rhel we have been adding more support to
make it more obvious that non-rhel drivers have been installed. Perhaps
that will help support. Most reports I read though usually have the
statement "does it work without the 3rd-party driver".
I'd accept a change to new-kernel-package rpmposttrans() that invokes
the DKMS script directly, as opposed to looping through a plug-in
directory, if that makes people feel any better. I suspect it doesn't
though.
I would be more in favor of that provided we shipped and controled the
script. Something an 'rpm -v' could verify that the script wasn't
maliciously changed.
Waiting on a higher-level tool to assist the support guys ask for
'dkms status' info may be appropriate for RHEL, but not for Fedora.
My opinion is support shouldn't have to use 'dkms status' at all, it
should be obvious that 3rd-party modules are loaded (i assume 'dkms
status' just reports that as I'm not familiar with the tool).
Cheers,
Don