linux-watch.com — Linux users want two things for their hardware: drivers; and easy access to those drivers. The first is finally happening; and now, thanks to a Dell Linux project called DKMS (Dynamic Kernel Module Support), the other is on its way.
Sep 23, 2007 View in Crawl 4
rick71Sep 23, 2007
PCLinuxOS is hardly ever mentioned by reviewers. It is not mentioned in this article either, and yet it is listed as #1 in Distrowatch's listing, and that is without Ubuntu's/Canonical's deep pocket advertising. And yes, DKMS is included.
rick71Sep 23, 2007
I guess that's how Ubuntu did...
mdomschSep 23, 2007
to modprobe the new driver, you must have that driver compiled and included as part of your distro's kernel, stored in /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/... somewhere. What if you don't have the driver there yet, because it's not included in your distro's kernel package? That's what DKMS solves - it compiles driver source code into a module and puts it in the right place so you can just 'modprobe newdriver' thereafter. It does a bunch of other stuff too.
mountaincableSep 23, 2007
But why? If it ain't broke don't fix it, thats why there are linux boxes that have been up for years.
vinbobSep 23, 2007
You not quite getting it chaps. DKMS is about being able to create modules that do not have to be compiled for a specific kernel.To sej7279:Currently if you where to upgrade the kernel with yum but the nvidia binary module *for that specific kernel* was not available on livna yet, your kernel may be updated but would the nvidia driver be missing in the new kernel, although it'd be likely that Yum would warn you of missing dependencies.With DKMS the idea is that any any modules not included in the kernel upgrade will still carry over to the new kernel following the upgrade without having to download and install a separate precompiled module package.To Sharky..Most Linux desktops automatically update, that's not the issue here. No-one ever said that automatic updates are bad on desktops, servers are a different ball game though.On most Linux desktops not only the kernel and drivers are updated automatically but the apps too, so long as they've all been installed with the distro's package manager.
andreyknureOct 5, 2007
Being a technical support engineer of web hosting providers I would like to say Linux is one the best operating systems which is widely used in the web hosting industry. Just take a look at the web hosting companies placed at my web page - www.andreyknure.narod.ru All these companies use Linux to manage their servers.