Re:Fedora has significantly fumbled DKMS handling for Linux ...
by cbmuser on Monday May 24, 2021 @05:49AM
(#27262563)
If I’m understanding this correctly, this is actually a feature that was developed for RHEL and just happens to be enabled on Fedora by accident.
RHEL has a stable kernel ABI because they support third-party binary modules such as from SGI.
Since the kernel ABI is stable, there is no need to rebuild DKMS modules on every kernel update.
FWIW, Debian has a similar mechanism which uses stable kernel ABIs. That’s why a Debian kernel image has always two version numbers, one for the ABI and one for the actual kernel version.
DKMS modules on Debian are rebuilt only when the ABI version changes. It probably uses the same DKMS feature as RHEL, not sure.
RHEL has a stable kernel ABI because they support third-party binary modules such as from SGI.
Since the kernel ABI is stable, there is no need to rebuild DKMS modules on every kernel update.
FWIW, Debian has a similar mechanism which uses stable kernel ABIs. That’s why a Debian kernel image has always two version numbers, one for the ABI and one for the actual kernel version.
DKMS modules on Debian are rebuilt only when the ABI version changes. It probably uses the same DKMS feature as RHEL, not sure.