batman-gateway-dkms problems when upgrading kernel from repos

[mason059]

Hi all. Every time I pull down a kernel upgrade from the repos, during installation, apt calls batman-gateway-dkms and another file, both of which fail to run with an error message which indicates that the files failed to load/install. The kernel nonetheless upgrades fine, and the error messages are really more of an annoyance than anything else. From what I can tell, batman allows kernel modules to be loaded as called. Also when I try to reinstall the 3 batmand packages I get the same error, although Synaptic indicates that they are installed afterwards.

My question (yes, there is a question here somewhere lol) is, do I really require these packages as kernel updates seem to install fine? In other words, is the functionality provided by the batman packages need to have or nice to have?

As always, any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Doug

[oshunluvr]

Re: batman-gateway-dkms problems when upgrading kernel from repos

Without knowing what batman-gateway is...

dkms is dynamic kernel module service and requires kernel headers that match your installed kernels in order to load the modules. The error messages are likely telling you that the module(s) are not installed and this usually happens because of missing headers.

Open a terminal and type dkms status and the results will show you what dkms modules you have installed and what their status is (built, installed, activated).

If the modules are no longer needed by your system, it should be safe to remove them. On the other hand, installing the matching headers for all your kernels should cause dkms to update and the error messages will go away.