Some help about backporting a nic module to 2.6.32 longterm

[Greg KH]

On Mon, Jan 09, 2012 at 07:19:18PM -0200, André Ferraz wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 	I'm using the 2.6.32.x longterm series for our servers but we
> 	are facing a problem with the bnx2x driver module in our latest
> 	G7 HP blade servers, the module exists but it doenst ping and
> 	cant access any node in the network, i saw too that the
> 	broadcom and hp driver specs can't build on 2.6.32 kernel
> 	because they only support the 2.6.18 redhat series. The version
> 	maintained by CentOS/Redhat om 5.x release works but it is
> 	based on 2.6.18 kernel.
> 
> 	My initial idea was pull the CentOS 6 kernel source (based on
> 	2.6.32) and make a patch of the bnx2x driver for my kernel
> 	source, the patch applies but when i boot the kernel the
> 	version it remains the same, i saw that the /firmware directory
> 	has some bnx2x files on it, my question to you is that i
> 	couldnt find anywhere is how the .c file and the .fw
> 	correlates , or , how can i create a real backport of this
> 	driver so i can use an usable version of the driver for the
> 	longterm release?

Why not just use the 3.2 kernel release, where this should be fixed
already, right?

Once you start backporting "bits and pieces", you can quickly end up
with an unmaintainable mess, not to mention something that no one,
including the community, or any company, will ever support.

greg k-h