A curse on LABEL=

Timothy Murphy tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
Sat Apr 10 21:42:30 UTC 2004


Alexander Dalloz wrote:

>> If I compile a kernel, and then say "make install",
>> and the installed kernel does not work, I call that a bug.
>> It's easy to get round - by changing root=LABEL=/ to root=/dev/hda?
>> in grub.conf - so I would call it a cosmetic bug.
> 
> I do not agree to call this a bug of any kind. Do you call each and
> everything where you have default settings you personally do not like
> and want to change a bug? ;)

It's not a question of "liking" or "not liking" this feature.
It is the fact that it causes a kernel panic that concerns me.

>> > If you want to use the LABEL feature,
>> > you need to have a correct labeled root partition, an initial ramdisk
>> > image and BSD label support compiled into the kernel.
>> 
>> If it requires all these preconditions to work properly,
>> that seems to me a very good reason not to make it the default.
> 
> No, not in my opinion. To build an own custom kernel requires a lot of
> other reading and investigation too. If you do not understand the whole
> process it would just be luck to get a working kernel.

I don't agree.
Apart from making sure one has the requisite software 
as listed in Documentation/Changes, 
and going at least once through a long list of options,
I don't think one has to "understand the whole process" -
that sounds as though one needs a PhD in Computer Science 
to compile the kernel.

Actually I don't understand why people are so attached to the kernels
ported with eg Fedora.
I regard the kernel and distribution as more or less orthogonal,
and would be unhappy with a distribution that made me use a given kernel.
But this seems to be a minority opinion.

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland





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