kernel source/module directions and why windows users are happy

[Arjan van de Ven]

On Sun, 2004-08-22 at 18:36, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> Am Sonntag, den 22.08.2004, 15:15 +0200 schrieb Arjan van de Ven:
> > > The worst part building external kernel-modules is IMHO that building
> > > external kernel-modules is different on suse, fedora and others. That
> > > makes it really hard for everyone IMHO.  
> > 
> > actually with the 2.6 kernel it's the same for all of us. Heck, even
> > with 2.4 was *IF* you had correct makefiles. (but I agree the 2.4 way
> > needed more hacks and was somewhat unclean. But there is progress... see
> > 2.6)
> 
> I don't think so. AFAIK on Suse 9.1 you need to make a 
> 
> make cloneconfig prepare_all

afaik the standard stock approach also works, eg having a kbuild
compatible makefile etc etc


> Is it in now?

not sure; we don't need it, as you can see you can build modules against
our kernel just fine.

> > I rather ship a script in kernel-utils to turn the src.rpm into a full
> > source.
> 
> Yes, that could also be done. But I think the fedora-extras solution
> will be easier for a lot of people. And could be used *if* drivers like
> the ati fglrx driver currently need parts from the source. 

actually the fglrx module is a special case. It's distribution is
lacking a few headers that it then attempts to "steal" from the kernel
source, however the proper thing to do would be to just ship these
headers with the module. These headers basically don't depend on the
kernel. I have talked to the DRM guys about this before and they seem to
feel that those headers belong to go with the driver, as opposed to be
moved to include/ and be used for building drivers against. 
They mean those headers are NOT interface definitions. They are an
integral part of the code of a DRM module, and DRM internals change, and
all drivers in the kernel tree will adapt. External ones don't. *but
they don't need to*, they can just ship the files they were designed
against. Unlike most other headers, these headers do NOT define some
internal kernel binary interface.


> > yep. firewire is off (mostly), and that is because it oopses during boot
> > even if you don't have hardware. I'd love for that to get fixed so that
> > I can enable it again. Other than that... just look at the config. Just
> > about everything is on.
> 
> I don't need firewire, but I was hit by the temporary DVB-Driver remove
> during 2.4.6-1.435 or so. 

that was done temporary for security reasons which at time we were still
in progress of being fixed.

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