[arch-general] [arch-dev-public] DKMS modules for virtualbox

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Wed, 9 Mar 2016 10:22:58 -0500, Eli Schwartz wrote:
>People using dkms will just need to learn to install the headers
>manually.

I agree with this. A while back, when a kernel was upgraded, it was an
issue that the kernel image package was upgraded, before the headers
package was upgraded, so building the modules failed. I guess this
isn't an issue anymore. Another issue could be, that we forget to run
'dkms remove', as I did a few days ago, before a new version of e.g.
virtualbox replaces the old version. Now one user wasn't aware that the
headers package is required, but this user noticed it. IOW, if an issue
appears, then we notice it and we are usually able to solve it easily.
Changing the policy likely does cause confusion. A lot of users don't
need kernel headers at all. OTOH pacman.conf's NoExtract would still
allow to not install the headers, if they should become part of the
kernel package. If free media space should be an issue, I doubt that
packages will be kept in the cache specified by pacman.conf's CacheDir,
resp. makepkg.conf's PKGDEST, so the package size unlikely matters.

Regards,
Ralf