dkms: rebuild kernel module for manually installed upstrem kernel

Question

I installed an "upstream kernel" (downloaded deb and installed with dpkg) because of an issue I have with the default kernel (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/956918) Now the custom battery settings I had are lost. I used the kernel modukle tp-smapi to change this settings on a thinkpad. If I try to load this module now, it fails because it was not built for this kernel. The installed packages are "tp-smapi-dkms" and "tp-smapi-source". Automatic rebuilding seems not to have been triggered. How can I do it manually?

Solution

Besides installing the linux-image-... package, you also need linux-headers-... . After installation of the headers, the modules for that kernel should be build automatically. If not, manually trigger a installation of modules for the current loaded kernel:

sudo dkms autoinstall -k $(uname -r)

Comments

[Andy]

It should be noted that with some modules if the compiler version used to build the mainline kernel and the one on the target system do not match there is a small possibility that the module will not function correctly.

[Lekensteyn]

@Andy I've only had issues with such kernels/ modules when trying to rmmod it, but it in theory it can indeed happen.