This is a pretty general question, which I'd like to hear more about in order to understand some problems I've been having. In short, what makes device drivers specific to a certain distro version? For example, why are different drivers needed for Redhat 7.0 vs. 8.0 vs. 9.0, or Suse 8.2 vs. 9.0? Why are drivers specific to a certain distribution to begin with?

If I understand the linux device driver model, a driver is written as a kernel module. I can understand, I guess, why a driver would need a certain kernel version, but why a particular distro?

This seems like a major annoyance, to have to make sure that all of your devices are supported by a new kernel/distro every time you upgrade. If someone could explain the compatibility issues involved here, it would be a big help.

This comes up because I have a Tyan Tiger K8W with onboard Silicon Image 3114 SATA RAID controller, and there doesn't seem to be any 64-bit distro which currently supports this drive controller (SuSe 9.0, Mandrake 9.2, or Fedora). All of these distros have older versions which support this controller, but none of the new ones. For example, I'm currently running Redhat 9.0, for which a driver is available (a binary one, from Silicon Image).

Usually a driver doesn't need to be "re-written". The issue is that all those packages you see are binary packages compiled under a specific kernel.

Ah, so. I have another one for you, then. Is it reasonable to assume that the open source driver for this controller, if compiled with the kernel in 64-bit, would work? It's my understanding that "64-bit Linux" is really just the kernel compiled using the appropriate 64-bit (actually x86-64) flags. Am I on target with this?

It is reasonable to assume that. I am not sure how much you would really benifit from a driver being compiled in 64-bit vs. 32-bit. But it should be possible to compile it that way unless the driver writer assumed a 32bit machine in his implementation of something.

It's my understanding that a kernel is either all 64-bit, or nothing. I'd like to get a 64-bit kernel running, so that I can compile and run some custom software in native x86-64 mode. I believe that in order to do this, I need a 64-bit kernel--that's why I'm concerned with the 3114 driver. Thanks for your help.

Well if the driver is compiled as a module then it isn't part of the kernel. And it is my understanding that you can run 32bit code even if the kernel is 64bit. Gentoo calls this 64-compat mode or something like that.

Is the driver included in the kernel source these days? Cause if it is it should compile with the compiler set for x86-64.

OK, I'll try this tomorrow. Thanks for sticking with me on this.