Hi all

Here's the proposal we've already started discussing
during our Edinburgh HEPiX discussion on Scientific Linux
about packaging additional kernel modules in uniform
way:

The most widely adopted format seems to be the one
from Fedora Guidelines:

http://www.fedora.us/wiki/PackagingKernelModules

it allows for easy automating of kernel and associated
kernel-module-foo package(s) using apt-get (checked ;-))
and yum (read on a mailing list -> to be verified)

Apparently 3rd party add-on package builders
(http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/mega-merge.php)
also seem to agree (more-or-less) on this way -see
repo-coord archives for
May:http://lists.atrpms.net/pipermail/repo-coord/2004-May/
(yes it is a flamewar running for couple of months now but calming
down slowely : majority seems to support this option...)

We at CERN currently packaged following in this format:

kernel-module-bcm5700-kversion
kernel-module-madwifi-kversion
kernel-module-openafs-kversion
kernel-module-xfs-kversion
kernel-module-alsa-kversion

This is quite nice as in order to install add-on module
using apt I need to use only a command alike:
apt-get install kernel-module-xfs-`uname -r` and the
upgrade-kernel apt LUA script also handles upgrade
of such packages along with kernel upgrade auto-magically.

I think we could try to standardize on this packaging guideline
for Scientific Linux too: what is your opinion ?

(Most of these packages could go into SL contrib
area as these are not really site specific -> but
of course kernel dependent)

Jarek [CERN Linux maintainer]

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