When running RealPort Linux driver, we see a log message:
dgrp: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel
Is it critical or is it to be ignored?
The "kernel tainted" message can be considered as warning for Linux licensing issues and has no impact on the functionality, see Linux community feedback on this:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=287678
> Tainting the kernel just means you have a binary, probably proprietary firmware blob, and when the module loads it the kernel is "tainted," meaning it's not 100 percent open source anymore. This is quite common with a lot of firmware that's shipped in the firmware packages, and it's the price we pay to be able to use all the hardware Linux is now compatible with due to modules and firmware like this.
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/118116/what-is-a-tainted-linux-kernel
The Digi RealPort driver indeed is a proprietary protocol not provided with full source code, thats why it "taints" the kernel wanting to be full open source.
Last updated:
Sep 23, 2024