6. Driver Updates

The Intel® High Definition Audio (HDA) driver in ALSA has been updated. This update improves audio support for newer hardware with HDA integrated audio.

Previously, network devices using the forcedeth driver may have stopped responding while doing rcp command from multiple clients. With this update, the forcedeth driver has been updated, which resolves this issue.

Previously, the Automatic Direct Memory Access (ADMA) mode was enabled by default in the sata_nv driver. Consequently, device errors and timeouts may have been encountered with some devices that utilize the sata_nv driver. With this update, ADMA mode is now disabled by default, which resolves this issue.

The drivers for virtio, the platform for I/O virtualization in KVM, has been backported to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8 from Linux Kernel 2.6.27. These drivers will enable KVM guests to achieve higher levels of I/O performance. Various user space components such as: anaconda, kudzu, lvm, selinux and mkinitrd have also been updated to support virtio devices.

The r8169 driver has been updated to provide support for newer network chipsets. With this update, all variants of RTL810x/RTL8168(9) are now supported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8.

The mptsas driver has been updated to version 3.12.29.00. This update includes bug fixes and enables the following new features:

The lpfc driver has been updated to version number to 8.0.16.46. This update applies several bug fixes and enhancements, including:

The megaraid_sas driver for SAS based RAID controllers has been updated to version 4.01-RH1. Several bug fixes and improvements are applied by this update, including:

The eHEA ethernet device driver for IBM eServer System P has been updated to version 0078-08.

The EHCA infinband device driver will not be supported for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.8 and all future Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 releases.