[CentOS] Correct way to provide kernel patch

[Akemi Yagi]

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 1:24 PM, Chris Miller <centos at scratchspace.com> wrote:
>
> I work with a USB device that is intercepted by the USB HID driver.
> In order to stop this behavior, the device needs to be added to the
> HID blacklist (hid-core.c) and a custom kernel needs to be compiled.
>
> If I create a CentOS specific patch, it appears I need to create the
> patch against an already patched source tree (i.e. after running
> rpmbuild -bp) because other patches exist that add items to the
> blacklist that would break my diff patch. Seems like this would be a
> never ending battle as new patches get added to new kernels.
>
> What's the correct way to get this device added to the kernel? Do I
> submit my patch to the CentOS dev team, to the kernel.org folks, or
> both? What's the timeline (if accepted) to actually seeing this in a
> production kernel? On the CentOS kernel build how-to, the kABI fixes
> won't make it into CentOS until 5.4, and 5.3 hasn't been released yet.

CentOS will not make changes to the distro kernel because it aims to
be 100% binary compatible (including bugs).  However, it you submit
the patch you have, it might be included in the centosplus kernel.  I
suggest you open a report at http://bugs.centos.org with a detailed
description of the problem and upload your patch.

Another thing you want to try is to open a bugzilla upstream.  If the
patch is incorporated in the upstream kernel, it will then be in the
CentOS kernel.

The kABI fix you mentioned is not a problem.  It is just a note.  You
can still build custom kernels by following the instructions on the
Wiki.

Akemi