Re: [CentOS] RHEL / CentOS Kernel Updates

2008-01-30 Thread Akemi Yagi
On Jan 30, 2008 4:06 AM, Johnny Hughes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> nate wrote:
> > Akemi Yagi wrote:
> >
> >> I hope you are interested in contributing to the CentOS community by
> >> sharing your driver:
> >>
> >> https://projects.centos.org/trac/dasha/
> >
> > Looks like that site is for source drivers, these drivers come from
> > VMWare, and I'm not sure what their license is, nor do I know exactly
> > what the build process is, I just take the resulting binaries, so I'm
> > not really one that can submit the driver.
>
> open-vm-tools is also being developed for CentOS :D
>
> http://people.centos.org/~hughesjr/open-vm-tools/

I re-read the earlier post and realized that nate was talking about
vmware tools, *not* the vmware modules for the host machine.  Then I
thought about referring to Johnny's open-vm-tools.  Of course it is
best to hear about it from him.

Thanks Johnny!

Akemi
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Re: [CentOS] RHEL / CentOS Kernel Updates

2008-01-30 Thread Johnny Hughes

nate wrote:

Akemi Yagi wrote:


I hope you are interested in contributing to the CentOS community by
sharing your driver:

https://projects.centos.org/trac/dasha/


Looks like that site is for source drivers, these drivers come from
VMWare, and I'm not sure what their license is, nor do I know exactly
what the build process is, I just take the resulting binaries, so I'm
not really one that can submit the driver.


open-vm-tools is also being developed for CentOS :D


http://people.centos.org/~hughesjr/open-vm-tools/



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Re: [CentOS] RHEL / CentOS Kernel Updates

2008-01-29 Thread Manish Kathuria
On 1/30/08, Johnny Hughes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> nate wrote:
> > Manish Kathuria wrote:
> New features are typically not backported to
> > current versions of the kernel, newer drivers are often back
> > ported, assuming the driver existed in the RHEL kernel. If the
> > driver did not exist then it's much less likely to get included.
> >
> >> For the lifetime of a distribution like RHEL 4 or RHEL 5, Red Hat
> >> would stick to the same major and minor number of the kernel and would
> >> just change release numbers. What  is the relation, if any, between
> >> the new kernels and the updates released by Red Hat ?
> >
> > They make their systems ABI compatible throughout the lifetime of
> > the major version(4.x, 5.x).
> >
> > If your looking to stay on the leading edge with kernel updates your
> > best off using another distro maybe Fedora or something. If your
> > looking for a stable system that you don't have to worry about even
> > if it means you have to be more careful about picking what hardware
> > you run it on, RHEL and CentOS are good choices.
> >
> > You can always build your own kernels on RHEL/CentOS if you wanted,
> > or rebuild Fedora kernels and install them on RHEL/CentOS, in most
> > cases it should work.
>
> All the rest of what you said is true though ... drivers get backported
> much more frequently than other features.

In this connection, I have an example. I have a Netgear WG111 v2 USB
Wireless Adapter which does not get detected by CentOS 5.1 updated
with the latest 2.6.18 kernel released. This particular adapter has
the Realtek 8187 chip. However, Fedora 8 running on 2.6.23 detects the
adapter and also loads the correct module for it. This leaves me
wondering whether the adapter will ever be supported by the current
Cent OS 5.x kernel or the subsequent updates.


Thanks,
-- 
Manish Kathuria
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Re: [CentOS] RHEL / CentOS Kernel Updates

2008-01-29 Thread nate
Akemi Yagi wrote:

> I hope you are interested in contributing to the CentOS community by
> sharing your driver:
>
> https://projects.centos.org/trac/dasha/

Looks like that site is for source drivers, these drivers come from
VMWare, and I'm not sure what their license is, nor do I know exactly
what the build process is, I just take the resulting binaries, so I'm
not really one that can submit the driver.

nate

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Re: [CentOS] RHEL / CentOS Kernel Updates

2008-01-29 Thread Akemi Yagi
On Jan 29, 2008 12:25 PM, William Hooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Jan 29, 2008 3:18 PM, Les Mikesell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Johnny Hughes wrote:
> > >
> > > Overall ... unless you really, Really, REALLY need a newer kernel, it is
> > > best to use the one provided by the distribution.
> >
> > Is there a difference in the way kernel modules are managed between
> > CentOS4 and 5?  I thought that under CentOS4 after a kernel update
> > VMware would insist that you run vmware-config.pl but it would always
> > say that the existing module loads perfectly, where under CentOS5 it
> > always compiles a new version for each updated kernel.
>
> If we are talking about VMWare Server, RHEL4 is a supported OS, but
> RHEL5 isn't.  If your not on a supported OS, it won't have a
> pre-configured set of modules.
>
> It does look like RHEL5 support was added in VMWare Workstation 6, but
> I haven't used that version.

With VMWare Workstation 6 under CentOS-5, you run vmware-config.pl for
each kernel update, but you do not need to compile the modules each
time.

Akemi
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Re: [CentOS] RHEL / CentOS Kernel Updates

2008-01-29 Thread Akemi Yagi
On Jan 29, 2008 1:24 PM, nate <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Les Mikesell wrote:

> I run CentOS 4 and 5 under VMWare ESX 3.x, I hacked up the VMware tools
> into two different RPMS
>
> - core rpm (everything but drivers)
> - driver rpm
>
> When I want to deploy a new kernel I build a special RPM with the vmware
> modules compiled against that kernel(never accepting the built in ones
> for no real reason other than I don't want to). And install the updated
> drivers at the same time as I install the new kernel. So far it's
> worked every time, no need to run vmware-config after kernel updates.
>
> nate

I hope you are interested in contributing to the CentOS community by
sharing your driver:

https://projects.centos.org/trac/dasha/

Akemi
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Re: [CentOS] RHEL / CentOS Kernel Updates

2008-01-29 Thread nate
Les Mikesell wrote:
> Johnny Hughes wrote:
>>
>> Overall ... unless you really, Really, REALLY need a newer kernel, it is
>> best to use the one provided by the distribution.
>
> Is there a difference in the way kernel modules are managed between
> CentOS4 and 5?  I thought that under CentOS4 after a kernel update
> VMware would insist that you run vmware-config.pl but it would always
> say that the existing module loads perfectly, where under CentOS5 it
> always compiles a new version for each updated kernel.

I run CentOS 4 and 5 under VMWare ESX 3.x, I hacked up the VMware tools
into two different RPMS

- core rpm (everything but drivers)
- driver rpm

When I want to deploy a new kernel I build a special RPM with the vmware
modules compiled against that kernel(never accepting the built in ones
for no real reason other than I don't want to). And install the updated
drivers at the same time as I install the new kernel. So far it's
worked every time, no need to run vmware-config after kernel updates.

nate

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Re: [CentOS] RHEL / CentOS Kernel Updates

2008-01-29 Thread William Hooper
On Jan 29, 2008 3:18 PM, Les Mikesell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Johnny Hughes wrote:
> >
> > Overall ... unless you really, Really, REALLY need a newer kernel, it is
> > best to use the one provided by the distribution.
>
> Is there a difference in the way kernel modules are managed between
> CentOS4 and 5?  I thought that under CentOS4 after a kernel update
> VMware would insist that you run vmware-config.pl but it would always
> say that the existing module loads perfectly, where under CentOS5 it
> always compiles a new version for each updated kernel.

If we are talking about VMWare Server, RHEL4 is a supported OS, but
RHEL5 isn't.  If your not on a supported OS, it won't have a
pre-configured set of modules.

It does look like RHEL5 support was added in VMWare Workstation 6, but
I haven't used that version.

-- 
William Hooper
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Re: [CentOS] RHEL / CentOS Kernel Updates

2008-01-29 Thread Les Mikesell

Johnny Hughes wrote:


Overall ... unless you really, Really, REALLY need a newer kernel, it is 
best to use the one provided by the distribution.


Is there a difference in the way kernel modules are managed between 
CentOS4 and 5?  I thought that under CentOS4 after a kernel update 
VMware would insist that you run vmware-config.pl but it would always 
say that the existing module loads perfectly, where under CentOS5 it 
always compiles a new version for each updated kernel.


--
  Les Mikesell
   [EMAIL PROTECTED]

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Re: [CentOS] RHEL / CentOS Kernel Updates

2008-01-29 Thread Johnny Hughes

nate wrote:

Manish Kathuria wrote:

How are the updated kernels released by Red Hat / Cent OS related to
the latest vanilla kernels ? Are the changes, new features and
drivers, etc. available in the newer kernels also ported to the
updated kernels released by Red Hat in their entirety ?


If your comparing RHEL/CentOS kernels to kernel.org kernels they
are similar but Red Hat adds a ton of patches(v4 is upwards of
100+ patches). 


Actually for CentOS-5:

[EMAIL PROTECTED] SOURCES]$ ls *.patch | wc -l
1102

So ... there are 1102 patches in the CentOS-5 kernel

For the CentOS-4 kernel, that number is very similar at 1115.


New features are typically not backported to

current versions of the kernel, newer drivers are often back
ported, assuming the driver existed in the RHEL kernel. If the
driver did not exist then it's much less likely to get included.


For the lifetime of a distribution like RHEL 4 or RHEL 5, Red Hat
would stick to the same major and minor number of the kernel and would
just change release numbers. What  is the relation, if any, between
the new kernels and the updates released by Red Hat ?


They make their systems ABI compatible throughout the lifetime of
the major version(4.x, 5.x).

If your looking to stay on the leading edge with kernel updates your
best off using another distro maybe Fedora or something. If your
looking for a stable system that you don't have to worry about even
if it means you have to be more careful about picking what hardware
you run it on, RHEL and CentOS are good choices.

You can always build your own kernels on RHEL/CentOS if you wanted,
or rebuild Fedora kernels and install them on RHEL/CentOS, in most
cases it should work.


All the rest of what you said is true though ... drivers get backported 
much more frequently than other features.


One thing to consider about new kernels is abi changes ... and things 
(like sar, top, system monitoring tools, etc.) not working because of 
the differences unless they are also upgraded.  Also, /proc changes 
considerably in newer kernels as well ... as will the things that you 
include in /etc/sysctl.conf


Also many times newer things like binutils, mkinitrd and 
module-init-tools will be required with a newer kernel.


Overall ... unless you really, Really, REALLY need a newer kernel, it is 
best to use the one provided by the distribution.


Thanks,
Johnny Hughes



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Re: [CentOS] RHEL / CentOS Kernel Updates

2008-01-29 Thread nate
Manish Kathuria wrote:
> How are the updated kernels released by Red Hat / Cent OS related to
> the latest vanilla kernels ? Are the changes, new features and
> drivers, etc. available in the newer kernels also ported to the
> updated kernels released by Red Hat in their entirety ?

If your comparing RHEL/CentOS kernels to kernel.org kernels they
are similar but Red Hat adds a ton of patches(v4 is upwards of
100+ patches). New features are typically not backported to
current versions of the kernel, newer drivers are often back
ported, assuming the driver existed in the RHEL kernel. If the
driver did not exist then it's much less likely to get included.

> For the lifetime of a distribution like RHEL 4 or RHEL 5, Red Hat
> would stick to the same major and minor number of the kernel and would
> just change release numbers. What  is the relation, if any, between
> the new kernels and the updates released by Red Hat ?

They make their systems ABI compatible throughout the lifetime of
the major version(4.x, 5.x).

If your looking to stay on the leading edge with kernel updates your
best off using another distro maybe Fedora or something. If your
looking for a stable system that you don't have to worry about even
if it means you have to be more careful about picking what hardware
you run it on, RHEL and CentOS are good choices.

You can always build your own kernels on RHEL/CentOS if you wanted,
or rebuild Fedora kernels and install them on RHEL/CentOS, in most
cases it should work.

nate



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