It's useful because it will automatically build and install existing
kernel modules for newly-installed kernels. Many vendors ship drivers as
RPMs separate from the kernel, so they won't get updated when the kernel
is updated unless you use something like dkms.

interesting. the distro-based approach is that when you update your kernel, the package manager will naturally also update any packages which are dependent on the kernel version. that certainly works fine if you're using normal (binary, precompiled) packages. I guess the issue with rebuilding packages is that they are, in some sense, version-flexible (can be rebuilt for new kernels). the issue, though is that you don't know whether the package will still build for the new kernel until you try - it might have dependencies on a symbol that
gets removed from the kernel update, for instance.

in other words, with a normal all-precompiled distro, dkms still seems redundant.
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