[wellylug] DTP SCSi card driver for SME server 7

[Ewen McNeill]

In message <C0110910C6ABD31183DD0008C79FD3970316B4AE at SVRWGTN1>, Peter Jones writes:
>After a bit of investigation last night I see that it's not just a matter of
>changing extensions. I could be wrong but it appears the extension more or
>less equates to a version or release level? So I need eata_dma.ko for kernel
>2.6.9.

The kernel module extension did change from .o (2.4 and previous) to .ko
(2.5.something and later), which amongst other things represents (I
believe) a somewhat different kernel module file layout.

However kernel modules are tightly tied to the kernel for which they are
compiled.  They are effectively part of the kernel, just available to be
loaded (or not loaded) depending on requirements.

With a few exceptions it is not possible to take a kernel module
compiled for one kernel version and use it with a different kernel
version.  Even between, eg, 2.6.8 and 2.6.9, or in many cases between a
vendor X kernel and a vendor Y kernel.  Certainly not between 2.4.xx and
2.6.xx.

If your preferred distribution doesn't support your preferred hardware
then you probably need to think seriously about changing one or the
other of those (ie, different hardware or a different distribution;
there are other distributions which still have DPT SCSI support).
There are other ways around the problem (eg, compiling your own kernel
as someone suggested) which could probably be made to work, but they
are probably more challenging than you want to get into (amongst other
things you'd need to do a very customised install, possibly not using
the distro installer at all).

Ewen