* Paul C. Leopardi
Hi Harry, I took a look at modutils-2.4.26-1.i386.rpm from eg. http://www.btree.org/linux/sources/utils/kernel/modutils/v2.4/
Changelog dated 2003-10-28 includes: * Suppress module not found message on modprobe -q. Frank Murphy. but modutils-2.4.26-1 does not include, eg. generate_modprobe.conf
The SUSE modutils-2.4.25-78 RPM seems to be a combination of modutils-2.4.25 and module-init-tools-0.9.13-pre as per eg. http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/module-init-tools/ See also, eg. http://rpmfind.creatis.insa-lyon.fr/linux/RPM/suse/9.0/i386/suse/i586/ modutils-2.4.25-56.i586.html
Thus the SUSE modutils-2.4.25 does not have the fix listed in the Changelog for modutils-2.4.26-1, and yet I can't install modutils-2.4.26-1 because it will mess up module-init-tools. I'm not sure if I can replace modutils-2.4.25 with the combination of say modutils-2.4.26-1 and module-init-tools-0.9.14 without messing something up or leaving somthing out.
1) Why did SUSE combine these two separate packages into one?
So that one can boot both 2.4 and 2.6 versions of the kernel. module-init-tools are for 2.6 modules and modutils is for 2.4.
2) Will I mess things up if I install the two separate pristine packages instead of the SUSE one?
You might. Unless you know what you're doing.
3) Will SUSE separate these packages in the next distribution release?
Probably not. Since 2.6 is going to be the default kernel in the next release, it might be we're not supporting 2.4 anymore. _If_ we choose to do so thought, it's going to be like it is now. -- Mads Martin Joergensen, http://mmj.dk "Why make things difficult, when it is possible to make them cryptic and totally illogical, with just a little bit more effort?" -- A. P. J.