Using akmods with Jockey in Fedora

By default, 3rd party drivers (such as NVIDIA and ATI) are pre-compiled against a specific kernel version and delivered in a kmod package. However when there’s a kernel update, it might block because there is no updated driver package yet available. This can also break a system if you update the kernel and reboot.

Wouldn’t it be great if the system could automatically build a new driver if required? Yes, and this is where akmods come into play.

With akmods, when your system boots it will check to see if a registered driver needs to be built. If you have an updated kernel, then akmods will build a fresh driver for that kernel and install it – no need to wait for a kmod to be updated upstream. This avoids the broken system scenario above.

While akmods are nothing new, you can now use them with Jockey under Fedora 16 (rather than just kmod packages). Simply download the RPMS from a Kororaa mirror and install (or you could build your own from SRPM).

You will need:

  • jockey
  • jockey-selinux
  • jockey-modaliases
  • jockey-gtk or jockey-kde

Post install, edit the /etc/jockey.conf and set “akmods=true”. Then, you can run Jockey and install the driver you want.

Jockey driver manager

You will also need build tools like gcc, make and kernel-headers (and of course, akmods), however these should be pulled in as dependencies of the akmod package.

This is still an experimental feature and any feedback is welcome!

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