Bug 336215 – x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers: building the kernel module should be optional

• Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Ambroz Bizjak 2010-09-06 12:42:59 UTC]

x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers wants to compile and install an external kernel module. This should be optional, in case the user want to manage kernel modules himself.

Why someone would want that:
- The package manager (and the ebuilds) does a bad job at managing external kernel modules. I.e. Portage leaves all kernel modules behind untracked, and Paludis removes old kernel modules automatically (breaking older kernels).
- Ebuilds that build kernel modules depend on virtual/linux-sources. This is:
  1. undesirable if the user wants to use his own kernel source (not from the tree), and
  2. completely useless, since the the kernel still has to be compiled (by the user), even if the source was installed by the package manager.
- The current code in the tree might not be capable of building modules for the user's particular setup. E.g. I use a 64-bit kernel with a 32-bit userspace, so the kernel and modules have to be compiled with a cross-compiler.

Reproducible: Always

[Comment 1 Ambroz Bizjak 2010-09-06 12:45:12 UTC]

Created attachment 246254 [details, diff]
ebuild patch

This patch to nvidia-drivers-256.53.ebuild adds a USE flag "kmod" that specifies whether a Linux kernel module is to be build, and defaults to on.

[Comment 2 Lars Wendler (Polynomial-C) (RETIRED) 2010-09-06 12:55:42 UTC]

(In reply to comment #0)
> - Ebuilds that build kernel modules depend on virtual/linux-sources. This is:
>   1. undesirable if the user wants to use his own kernel source (not from the
> tree), and

This can easily be worked around by adding 

  sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.6.99

to the file /etc/portage/profile/package.provided

[Comment 3 Ambroz Bizjak 2010-09-06 12:59:38 UTC]

(In reply to comment #2)
> This can easily be worked around by adding 
> 
>   sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-2.6.99
> 
> to the file /etc/portage/profile/package.provided

Unfortunately I use Paludis and it's somehow more complicated. Also prevents you from actually installing the package in question.

[Comment 4 Ambroz Bizjak 2010-09-13 15:53:29 UTC]

Created attachment 247137 [details, diff]
ebuild patch

don't call kernel_is if -kmod, because it attmepts to find the kernel dirs

[Comment 5 Doug Goldstein (RETIRED) 2010-10-11 23:26:31 UTC]

Find a PMS way to say that the kernel sources are present then since all ebuilds that build kernel pieces depend on virtual/linux-sources because of the use of the linux-info eclass.

This won't be done.