If you have a device not supported by the standard kernel but by an external driver module (aka “out of tree module”) and there are “kmp”-packages available, you will have to choose the correct one matching your installation.
Very often you will find several packages called
something-kmp-default-*some strange numbers-i586.rpm
or
something-kmp-xen-some strange numbers-x86_64.rpm
and so on.
Many new users don’t know which one to pick, so they choose all of them and end up YaST installing a lot of new kernel packages (which is not a bug, YaST is doing this to fulfill dependencies needed by non-matching kmp-packages) they don’t really need.
So how can you find out, which package is the right one?
Open a terminal window and type:
uname -r
cat /etc/SuSE-release
This will give you
-
the version of your running kernel (2.6.something)
-
the “flavor” of your kernel (default, pae, bigsmp …)
-
the version of openSUSE you are using (10.3, 11.1 …)
-
the architecture of your system (i586, x86_64)
With this information, you will be able to choose the correct package and avoid the installation of unneeded kernel packages.
Here a little example.
-
You have openSUSE 11.0 and a wireless card (yes, what else would I choose for an example?) and it does not work.
-
You read the stickies in the wireless subforum (OK, this is the unrealistic part, most newbies don’t do that) and you post the following outputs asking for help:
/sbin/lspci -nn |grep -i net
01:00.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2860 [1814:0781]
- Somebody gives you this link as an answer:
-
You find a lot of packages and don’t know which one to install
-
You use the above mentioned commands and get:
uname -r
2.6.25.20-0.1-default
cat /etc/SuSE-release
openSUSE 11.0 (x86_64)
VERSION = 11.0
So you have
kernel version = “2.6.25.20-0.1”
kernel flavor = “default”
openSUSE version = “11.0”
architecture = “x86_64”
A correct package will contain
rt2860sta-kmp-default (flavor)
2.6.25.20-0.1 (kernel version)
x86_64.rpm (architecture)
and you will find it in a repository for openSUSE 11.0.
This here would be a matching package:
rt2860sta-kmp-[b]default-1.8.0.0_2.6.25.20_0.1-25.1.x86_64.rpm
These ones would not match (reason in bold letters):
rt2860sta-kmp-debug-1.8.0.0_2.6.25.20_0.1-25.1.x86_64.rpm
rt2860sta-kmp-default-1.8.0.0_2.6.27.21_0.1-4.1.x86_64.rpm
rt2860sta-kmp-default-1.8.0.0_2.6.25.20_0.1-25.1.i586.rpm
So with two simple commands and opening your eyes, you will always pick the right package.