Dear all,

I have rebuild my linux kernel to add some feature (the same kernel version). After that, my Graphics card driver(Geforce) and Sound card driver(EMU10k1) doesn't work.

I need to recompile those driver to make them re-appear.

As I guess, the driver only some executable files, why do they depend on the linux kernel?

And I only changed the kernel slightly, why the drivers all didn't work??


Thanks

Well you need to recompile them, why - because they are dependent on kernel bits such as modules that are recompiled along with kernel, let's say you recompiled kernel with audio modules so instead of having audio bits compiled into kernel you decided that you better off loading and unloading module as it is being used/unused, now your previously compiled audio driver knew where to find the information, let's say it was in a memory location 0xfffff for simplicity, now when you recompiled kernel the nessecary code for audio information is no longer in 0xfffff location it has been moved to 0xfff3a, and when it tries to access the location 0xfffff instead of reaching lets say sequencer it accesses an IDE controller information, and the system bugs out, clear????

That means the hardware drivers only know the exact memory location they need to read?

Then, if a person is going to update kernel(this guy always enjoy to use latest things), then he will be very annoying to install the drivers again and again?

What drivers are you using? Are you using drivers directly from the vendor, or are you using kernel modules?

I am using EMU10k1 and the NVIDIA graphics driveres.
Not from the kernel itself.

Then, compile kernel would affect those externel drivers??