Ubuntu

Kernel ABI upgrades of kernel driver packages

Registered by Martin Pitt

Currently, linux-meta provides a rather manual way to upgrade kernel driver packages (such as l-u-m) to a new kernel ABI. However, this is problematic in several ways:

 * It needs to be maintained manually and even with it, people often install de-sync linux and driver packages.
 * It forces/encourages us to throw all third-party drivers into a single monolithic package which is hard to maintain (e. g. l-r-m).
 * It does not apply to anything that is not covered by l-meta itself (linux-{ubuntu,restricted,backports}-modules), such as virtualbox-ose-modules, a lot of other already packaged drivers, and most importantly, packages from third-party driver repositories.

It would be much better to find a generic "reverse dependencies"-like solution in the package manager and the dependency fields, such as the kernel declares a virtual package "linux-kernel-abi-2.6.24-16-ubuntu" and the package management ensures to upgrade all driver packages on top of it in lockstep.

Blueprint information

Status:
Complete
Approver:
Ben Collins
Priority:
Undefined
Drafter:
Martin Pitt
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
None
Definition:
Obsolete
Series goal:
Proposed for intrepid
Implementation:
Not started
Milestone target:
None
Completed by
Martin Pitt

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

pitti, 2008-06-05: Found a workable solution, asked various people for feedback.
keybuk, 2008-07-02: After chatting with others, this doesn't address various things and needs more discussion fwict
saivann, 2009-02-08: Isn't DKMS deprecating this blueprint?
pitti, 2009-02-08: it's not deprecated, just much less urgent; DKMS is great for non-officially supported drivers, and the officially supported ones are usually in our main kernel tree

(?)

Work Items

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