Tainted kernels:
Some oops reports contain the string 'Tainted: ' after the program
counter, this indicates that the kernel has been tainted by some
mechanism. The string is followed by a series of position sensitive
characters, each representing a particular tainted value.
1: 'G' if all modules loaded have a GPL or compatible license, 'P' if
any proprietary module has been loaded. Modules without a
MODULE_LICENSE or with a MODULE_LICENSE that is not recognised by
insmod as GPL compatible are assumed to be proprietary.
2: 'F' if any module was force loaded by insmod -f, ' ' if all
modules were loaded normally.
The primary reason for the 'Tainted: ' string is to tell kernel
debuggers if this is a clean kernel or if anything unusual has
occurred. Tainting is permanent, even if an offending module is
unloading the tainted value remains to indicate that the kernel is not
trustworthy.
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from /usr/src/Lnx/linux-2.4.17/Documentation/oops-tracing.txt
==========
Last week's Usenix Technical Conference brought together academics, high-end
information technology professionals and old-school UNIX gurus. And
Linus Torvalds.
During the "Birds of a Feather" (BoF) session held on
the evening of June 14 at the Usenix Conference,
>> Linus Torvalds << took questions about the
present and future of Linux. One question came from
a Linux administrator at a Very Large Company that is
struggling with the issue of making a vendor's
binary-only kernel modules play well with an up-to-date
Linux system.
"I'm a complete non-believer in binary modules",
Torvalds said, reiterating what has become the
conventional wisdom of the Linux-kernel mailing list
and experienced Linux support people. "Most houses
that use Linux a lot say that they won't support binary
modules because they can't. They may work, but
you're not getting the full advantage of Linux", he
added. On the legal side, there is no specific exception for
binary-only modules. "They're borderline legal. There's
nothing in the license that says you're excused from the GPL", Torvalds said.
Download Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.