--- Shawn Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 07/04/07, Chung Hang Christopher Chan > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Doing a dist-upgrade for a new driver seems a > bit of > > > an overkill and > > > highly unlikely. Do you have a better example? > > > > Haha, well that was what I could come up with > because > > that is how I got the si3124 driver on Nexenta. Is > > there a source tarball or a binary package for the > > si3124 driver? Is it possible to just plug a > si3124 > > driver into the version of the Solaris kernel that > > comes with b50 on which nexenta alpha6 is based? > That > > is, does the b50 kernel have the sata framework > > available? How am I supposed to find out this kind > of > > information besides bugging people on a list? > > Yes. In fact, it's usually possible to use drivers > that were created > for Solaris 8 or 9 with the newest versions of > Solaris. > > *Unlike* GNU/Linux, Solaris has a very stable and > well-documented > driver API. This means that when your kernel > changes, generally > speaking, your drivers don't have to either.
Yes, I know this. You still have not however answered my question about where do I find a binary package or a source tarball for the si3124 driver. Maybe this is an edge case but I would not rule out a dist-upgrade for a driver especially one that comes with open solaris and is not third-party. Not everyone wants to maintain their own kernel or what not. You mentioned Sun Update Connection previously...are you referring to that wget script for patches? Is not there a problem with dependecies or something with patches? Is this available for Open Solaris? Besides the kernel, what if I want to maintain my own set of packages for my servers? With apt or yum, one can create one's repository and even using Debian or Centos as the base, one can combine the OS repository with one's custom packages and manage your servers that way. Say Open Solaris/Solaris comes with a certain version of sendmail but I need the features that come with a newer version or I am patching sendmail to get those features. On Linux with apt/dpkg or yum/rpm, you can build your package and then deploy it by adding that package to your repository and running an update on servers concerned. The whole thing could be such that a single command will get all those servers to come and get it. I do not see anything that will provide this kind of functionality for Open Solaris/Solaris deployments. > > For example, the OSS drivers I installed on Solaris > 10 Update 3 were > copied directly over the Solaris Developer Express > b55, Solaris > Express Community Edition b60, and Solaris Express > Community Edition > b61, and it worked on all of them... Exactly why I want to move to Solaris from Linux. No stupid politics about drivers, no stupid politics about code maintenance for new features, no recompiling everytime the kernel gets a new release. > > > But then, I do not know much about what is in a > > certain Solaris kernel let alone how to compile > one or > > a driver (i guess this is documented on > docs.sun.com?) > > It depends on the individual driver. Usually it's as > simple as make; > make install and maybe an update_drv run or two -- > *if* it has be > compiled. > > If it's already compiled for you, it's usually as > easy as something > like running "pkgadd -d MYdriver.pkg". Great. Not much different from Linux for binary drivers. Now if you can tell me the same for those that come with Open Solaris no matter what release you are running... Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
