[CentOS] Compile driver for new kernel rpm

[Chadley Wilson]

|-----Original Message-----
|From: centos-bounces at centos.org [mailto:centos-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf
|Of Filipe Brandenburger
|Sent: 24 June 2009 02:46 PM
|To: CentOS mailing list
|Subject: Re: [CentOS] Compile driver for new kernel rpm
|
|Hi,
|
|On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 07:29, Chadley Wilson<chadley at pinteq.co.za> wrote:
|> I have a driver source xxxxx.c file and a Makefile with it.
|> I want to recompile the kernel to include the driver
|
|You may not need to recompile the kernel, instead compile your driver
|only. There are (extensive) instructions for how to do it here:
|http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/BuildingKernelModules
|
|If building the driver without adding it to the kernel does not work,
|and you really think you should build a new kernel package that
|includes the driver, see these instructions instead:
|http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/Custom_Kernel
|
|> and rebuild the initrd.img.
|
|This should be a matter of running "mkinitrd" with the right
|parameters. If you include a line for your driver in
|/etc/modprobe.conf it should be included in new initrd.imgs by
|default.
|
|> Where do I copy the file in the kernel sources?
|> I currently have it in a sub folder of the drivers directory in the kernel
|> source folder.
|
|This would be usually said in the driver's documentation, but what you
|said implies there is none... If that works for you just go ahead...
|
|> There is one more question if I may, it does not have a xxxx.h (header
|file)
|> do I need it? The driver does compile perfectly without it. But I am not
|> sure if I need to compile it into the kernel?
|
|I don't think it would be required.
|
|By the way: when posting to this mailing list, please send e-mails
|with text only and not HTML. This is the first requirement in
|Guidelines for CentOS Mailing List, see this page:
|http://www.centos.org/modules/tinycontent/index.php?id=16. Your
|e-mails also include a silly disclaimer which I believe was already
|topic of discussion a little while ago. If you can't control HTML
|format, company logo image and disclaimer in your company's e-mail
|address, I strongly suggest that you get a free e-mail account (I use
|and recommend GMail) and subscribe to the lists using that address
|instead.
|
|HTH,
|Filipe
[CW]
Thanks for the links Filipe, much appreciated.

to Tim, I had another thread where the scenario is that the centos boot disk does not include a  critical ATA driver. We (the company where I work) are planning to distribute the discs with the computers we sell. So I need the driver included in the disc in the same fashion we do with our OEM Windows. The problem is that I can get the driver into the initrd.img and you can select it from the list when prompted for installation sources / load driver(select or disc). But this means we can't run the kickstart files from CD because before you can select your CD drivers, you must locate your ks.cfg file or cancel kickstart and load the driver. And I am unfortunately not in the position to be giving every customer a free flash drive to overcome the issue.

To get back to my main objective,

I know I am probably asking the question the wrong way here, but if I compile my driver, do I have to rebuild the kernel to put it in the initrd.img file? Or can I just run mkinitrd?

Kind regards
Chadley


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