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Driver Kit Do-It-Yourself

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Overview

The Partner Linux Driver Process ("Driver Process") offers a kABI notification service, build service and hosting service. While the kABI Notification Service is available to all Novell partners, the Driver Process Build Service and Hosting Service are provided based on partnership level. (See Driver Process Program Details)

Because the Driver Process Build Service may not be available to all partners and/or may not meet the needs of all partners, we also provide documentation which details how to build driver kits independent of Novell. Although using the Driver Process Build Service provides many benefits (close integration with SLES, assistance with builds, etc.), partners may also provide full driver kit functionality to their customers by following this "do-it-yourself" approach.

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Definitions

Please see Driver Process Terminology.

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Things to Consider before Creating a Driver Kit

  • What drivers will need to be in the driver kit?
  • What installation/update components will need to be in the driver kit? (Will there need to be a DUD/Add-on Product and an online update site?)
  • How will the driver kit be provided to the customer?
  • Overall, what will be the general process that a customer will use to install the drivers in this driver kit?
  • What documention will need to be included in the driver kit?
  • Will there be an online update site for the driver kit? If yes, where will it be hosted?
  • How will customers be informed of the existence of this driver kit?
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How to Create a Driver Kit

As noted on Driver Process Terminology, a Driver Kit generally contains a DUD/Add-on Product, an online install site, and an online update site, all containing kernel module packages (KMPs) of the drivers in the kit. The DUD/Add-on Product and online install site are used to initially install the KMPs and the online update site is used to provide future updates to the KMPs.

The following steps detail how to create a full driver kit:

1. Create KMP(s) of all the drivers which will be in the driver kit.

  • Follow the steps listed on Creating a KMP to make sure that the KMPs will function correctly in the SUSE environment.

2. Create a DUD/Add-on Product which can be used to initially install the KMPs.

3. Create an online install site which can be used (instead of the DUD/Add-on Product) to initially install the KMPs.

3. Create an online update site which can be used to provide future updates to the KMPs.

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