[Pkg-virtualbox-devel] [Pkg-fglrx-devel] Auto-building out-of-tree kernel modules

[Michael S Gilbert]

On Sat, 17 Oct 2009 19:47:09 +0200 Patrick Matthäi wrote:
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> Ben Hutchings schrieb:
> >> Wasting time and bandwidth (fetching linux-headers etc)? Great...
> > 
> > Building obscure modules for every kernel flavour on Debian's own
> > auto-builders is also a waste, especially when just one broken module
> > breaks the whole conglomeration package.
> 
> It is a big difference if our auto-builders build them e.g. 12 times for
> every architecture or if they have to be built on every end-consumer PC,
> which are e.g. one million pcs. All those senseless lost of energy and
> performance..

it takes about 3 seconds to build the fglrx module (on a modern
machine), so i don't see this as too much of a problem.  to put things
in perspective, it actually takes longer for apt to read its package
lists than to build the fglrx module, which is done a lot more often
(i.e. every time the user invokes "apt-get update") than building the
module.

> It is also not a good idea to switch to dkms, now where nothing is
> decided or it may end like with ia32-apt-get with many wasted developer
> ressources.

it may take some effort and learning on our part, but this is very
doable.  as long as dkms isn't going away, then the transition will not
be a wasted effort.

mike