Re: [PATCH 0/2] kbuild updates

[Alistair John Strachan]

[snipped a few CC addresses]

On Sunday 20 June 2004 23:16, Martin Schlemmer wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-06-21 at 00:03, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > On Sun, Jun 20, 2004 at 11:30:34PM +0200, Martin Schlemmer wrote:
> > > I know Sam's mta blocks my mail at least (lame isp), but for the rest,
> > > please reconsider using this.
> >
> > Hmm, got your mail.
> >
> > > Many external modules, libs, etc use
> > > /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build to locate the _source_, and this will
> > > break them all.
> >
> > Examples please. What I have seen so far is modules that was not
> > adapted to use kbuild when being build.
> > If they fail to do so they are inherently broken.
>
> Well, glibc use it for instance as an fall-through if you do not specify
> it via ./configure arguments, or environment (yes, glibc should not use
> it, etc, etc, no flames please =).  So as well does alsa-driver,
> nvidia's drivers (gah, puke, yes, its got some binary-only stuff in
> there ;), ati's drivers and a lot of other stuff (if you really need
> them all I can try to find time to look for more).
>
> I am not sure about ati's drivers and alsa, but nvidia uses kbuild.
>
>
> Thanks,

Sam's point is that unless you ask KBUILD to put the kernel build in a 
separate directory to its sources (this is not the default 
behaviour), /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build will still point to the mixture of 
source and build data, therefore no breakage will occur.

I understand Sam's reasoning and I believe it is sensible to have the source 
and build output in separate directories within /lib/modules/`uname -r`. The 
drivers in question can easily be updated to support the exceptional case 
whereby users build kernels in a different directory to the source.

Sam, maybe if there was a way to easily detect whether a kernel had been build 
with or without a different output directory, it would be easier to have 
vendors take this change on board. For example, I imagine in the typical case 
whereby no change in build directory is made, you will have something like 
this:

/lib/modules/2.6.7/build -> /home/alistair/linux-2.6
/lib/modules/2.6.7/source -> /home/alistair/linux-2.6

Whereas when O is given, it will instead be like this:

/lib/modules/2.6.7/build -> /home/alistair/my-dir
/lib/modules/2.6.7/source -> /home/alistair/linux-2.6

I presume that checking for the existence of /lib/modules/`uname -r`/source 
will be enough.

#
# where's the kernel source?
#

if [ -d /lib/modules/`uname -r`/source ]; then
	# 2.6.8 and newer
	KERNDIR="/lib/modules/`uname -r`/source"
else
	# pre 2.6.8 kernels
	KERNDIR="/lib/modules/`uname -r`/build"
fi

Yeah?

-- 
Cheers,
Alistair.

personal:   alistair()devzero!co!uk
university: s0348365()sms!ed!ac!uk
student:    CS/AI Undergraduate
contact:    1F2 55 South Clerk Street,
            Edinburgh. EH8 9PP.
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