Bug#518412: linux-2.6 install errors due to incompatible depmod files [was Re: Bug#518412: initramfs-tools: must support relative paths in modules.dep ]

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

On Friday 20 March 2009, Michal Marek wrote:
> Frans Pop napsal(a):
> > The use case here, which I suspect is not all that uncommon, is that
> > I built a kernel from upstream source on a (Debian unstable) system
> > with the new version of depmod and then installed that kernel on a
> > (Debian stable) system that has an older version of modprobe [1].
>
> Backward vs. forward compatibility discussion aside, there is a reason
> why most (all?) distro kernel packages run depmod at *install time* on
> the target machine. There might be modules installed by other packages,
> the format might change, newer depmod has a configuration file and
> finally the files are not exactly small and can be recreated rather
> easily. It might be a good idea to do the same when compiling kernels
> manually and copying them around.

After some more reflection I've come to agree with this.

Cheers,
FJP