The Driver Process allows customers to receive support for hardware and kernel driver updates independent of released SUSE Linux Enterprise distributions.
Hardware and software vendors can provide additional Linux drivers and driver updates to customers directly, in a way that is integrated with SUSE Linux Enterprise maintenance and support.
The Driver Process fills the gap between SUSE Linux releases in providing needed Linux drivers that can be critical to a customer's success.
Previously, if a driver wasn't a part of the distribution, a customer was required to locally compile the driver and add it to his systems. Compiling local versions of drivers often times didn't produce a supportable or functional environment and also introduced the possibility of rendering the entire system to be unstable.
For customers to receive support for kernel drivers, the drivers were required to be in the released distribution --- or you had to wait for the next release or service pack.
The new Driver Process enables a larger support of hardware and kernel drivers for our customers. It does not only simplify the deployment of new Linux drivers, it fills the gap of supporting various hardware and kernel drivers between Linux kernel releases or product service packs that can be critical to a customer's success.
Third-party hardware and software vendors will also benefit from the new driver process. The Driver Process allows kernel drivers to be provided independently from Novell's release schedules and release media. It simplifies driver maintenance for kernel updates with notifications on possible kernel update incompatibilities to their drivers so they can provide updates in a timely manner. Furthermore, the Driver Process offers third-party vendors the opportunity to add drivers to SUSE Linux that are not yet accepted upstream in the kernel.org source tree. In the end, software and hardware vendors will benefit from more satisfied customers that are able to update their systems with newer hardware and software without waiting for Linux releases.
The Driver Process is a combination of technology and collaboration between Novell and their partners to coordinate kernel updates and driver updates.
For the Linux administrator, the Driver Process simply means pointing YaST to an add-on product containing a driver, and the rest is magic: the driver package is matched to detected hardware and auto installed. The add-on product contains an update URL where future driver updates are retrieved when kernel updates require updated drivers.
A driver is linked to a specific kernel version via Kernel Application Binary Interface (kABI) metadata. This linkage enables the system to know what driver version works with the current kernel version.
When a kernel update occurs, YaST uses this information to determine if an updated driver is needed and it it is available from the update URL, and then YaST synchronises the driver with the kernel update.
For certified drivers, SUSE Linux Enterprise customers can contact Novell support which will work with vendors to resolve driver issues.
Behind the scenes, Novell and its partners work together to provide updated drivers whenever kernel updates require it. In the event of kernel updates Novell will notify partners about possible changes to the kABI and will provide updated kernels to partners for driver rebuilds (as soon as security embargos allows). Depending on the partner level as detailed below, Novell may offer to take the driver code into a build service so the driver is already rebuilt within Novell during the kernel security embargo. The driver update then usually will be available at the same time as the kernel security update.
The Driver Process is a new feature of SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 and is shared across all SUSE Linux Enterprise 10 based products.
With SP3 and beyond of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 and Novell Linux Desktop 9, Novell provides a limited solution for kernel driver updates.
As an active member of the open source community, Novell's position is clear: The best place for partners to develop kernel drivers is upstream in the kernel.org source tree, where kernel driver code benefits from thorough review and community involvement. Novell promotes having all Linux device drivers be a part of the official kernel.org source tree. However, we recognize that some drivers are not there yet or have been integrated only after a kernel release has happened. For this case, we offer a way to get a supportable and certifiable driver anyway using the Driver Process described here.
The Driver Process is part of our Open Enterprise Strategy. It is designed to strengthen the cooperation between enterprise-oriented technology partners and Novell: together we provide our customers with the infrastructure they rely on to successfully run their businesses in their own open enterprise. Furthermore the Driver Process allows our partners to extend their SUSE Linux Enterprise hardware and software support - independent of Novell - in favor of these customers.
After the provision of the openSUSE build service, the Driver Process is now extending the SUSE Linux autobuild process into a process by which Novell and partners can jointly provide Linux kernel support to customers.
The technology is all open source and included in the openSUSE.org distribution of SUSE Linux. Novell is providing and explaining the inner workings of this technology to the industry and other Linux vendors. Our intention is to further the general adoption of Linux. This is only possible by working with the Linux community.
Novell is contributing actively to Linux distribution's effort to create a coordinated approach to provide updated drivers. We welcome other Linux distributions to participate in our open source technology. DKMS already supports SUSE Linux KMPs.
Your vendor provided you with a "SUSE add-on product" (URL or physical medium). Please follow the generic step by step instructions to do an initial install of SUSE Linux with that medium or to later add the driver, or follow the instruction that comes with the add-on medium.
We provide our SUSE Linux Enterprise customers support for certified drivers for drivers provided by the Linux Partner Driver Process.
Read the Kernel Module Packagers Manual
Set up the add-on product for your internal testing and get familiar with the tools.
Join Novell PartnerNet: joining PartnerNet
Refer to the program details specified at Partner Linux Driver Process services.
We will soon add documentation describing how to create add-on products for code10 yourself. You will find concise documentation on how to distribute driver updates in the Kernel Module Packagers Manual for code9.
We are working towards a self-serviced build service based on the openSUSE infrastructure to further ease participation in driver update process.
Refer to the instructions at How to Create a Driver Update Disk
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