Using DKMS for delivery

Hey All,

I have decided to take the initiative of switching to a better delivery system for the next revision of Driver On Demand.

DKMS is a driver management system designed by Dell released under the GPL, that not only supports both binary and source packages, but can also patch the source for specific versions of the kernel.

Directly from Dells site: DKMS stands for Dynamic Kernel Module Support. It is designed to create a framework where kernel dependent module source can reside so that it is very easy to rebuild modules as you upgrade kernels. This will allow Linux vendors to provide driver drops without having to wait for new kernel releases while also taking out the guesswork for customers attempting to recompile modules for new kernels.

Another major benefit is that upgrading drivers is significantly safer, because you can easily switch between versions, use RPM based packages, rollback drivers, and uninstall them easily.. Basically, everything we wouldn't have had before.

What I am really seeking now is other companies opinions of DKMS.. It is GPL so i believe it to be a great choice, however, I'd like to know if anyone has any problems with it..

The use of DKMS will also dramatically reduce the complexity of the driver definition files, and prevent the need for reinventing the wheel. It also prevents the creation of a new unneccessary standard. One problem in the past with linux has been that there have been many different packaging systems. My hope is that DKMS, and the use of XML based driver definitions will be extendible enough to last years into the future.

Thank you for all your support.