Avoiding to reinstall drivers of DVB-T stick after kernel minor update

[stefboombastic]

Hi all!
I've got a Terrestrial DVB-T receiver USB stick (Terratec Cinergy TStick RC) and ubuntu( I have 10.10, but also the previous versions behaved the same) does not install it automatically.
For installing it I have to patch v4l-dvb manually following this: http://ohioloco.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1444535&page=2
Not a big problem, it just takes long!
What really drives me mad is that everytime Ubuntu updates itself, advancing the kernel of a minor release (i.e. 2.6.35.24.28 ->
2.6.35.25.32), my card stop working, and I have to do that procedure again!!
Is there a way for avoiding that? Other programs/drivers do not behave like that!
Even in Windows I've never had to reinstall drivers after installing any update!
Thank You in advance!
Stefano B.

[jjrp78]

no way around..if you update the kernel you need to compile the drivers again. I heard ubuntu 11.04 will support some cards nativelly..so cross your fingers

In the meanwhile you can avoid updating your kernel by:

1. Open the synaptic package manager
2. Search for ‘linux-image-generic’
3. Select the package starting with ‘linux-image-generic’
4. Click ‘Package > Lock Version’
5. Search for ‘linux-headers-generic’
6. Select the package starting with ‘linux-headers-generic’
7. Click ‘Package > Lock Version

[stefboombastic]

Thank you very much!
It really sounds awful .. such minor releases are pretty frequent!!
I think they are necessary updates.. I am worried about preventing them :(
And I can't understand why Linux didn't find a solution.. I never had such problems with windows..
Best regards,
Stefano

[Zennon]

It is my understanding that the DVB modules have to be re-compiled and re-installed after every kernel upgrade. I do this for my system by running:



stop mythtv-backend; modprobe --remove dvb_usb_af9015 dvb_core dvb_usb
cd v4l-dvb; make rminstall

apt-get dist-upgrade
hg clone http://linuxtv.org/hg/v4l-dvb
cd v4l-dvb
make -j3 --silent
make installHowever, after upgrading from 2.6.35-28-generic #49 to 2.6.35-28-generic #50 today, the required DVB modules for my TV card were just there - and just worked:

/lib/modules/2.6.35-28-generic/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/dvb-usb-af9005-remote.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.35-28-generic/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/dvb-usb-af9005.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.35-28-generic/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-usb/dvb-usb-af9015.ko
/lib/modules/2.6.35-28-generic/kernel/drivers/media/dvb/frontends/af9013.ko

I'm puzzled.. can somebody educate me a bit here? Perhaps a re-compile is needed only when upgrading from e.g. 2.6.35.27 to 2.6.35.28? Either way, it would be nice if kernel upgrades would automatically install the required DVB modules. :)

EDIT: I've worked out that the 'make rminstall' command may have failed to remove the modules this time around - that explains why the DVB modules were still there (and loaded) after the kernel upgrade. My last question still stands, though: when is a re-compile/re-install of the DVB modules required?