Penelope builds a kernel
A message that is not in the archive (sent off-list or not yet received): [email protected]
Quoted 27 lines · [email protected] wrote:
In a message dated 1/14/2002 5:32:46 PM Eastern Standard Time,
Quoted 11 lines · [email protected] writes:
Quoted 1 line · Eric S. Raymond
Penelope needs to build a kernel to support her exotic driver, but
she
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hasn't got more than the vaguest idea how to go about it. The instructions with the driver source patch tell her to apply it at
the
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top level of a current Linux source tree and then just say "build
the
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kernel" before getting off into technicalia about the user-space tools.
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Very few hardware vendors give out kernel patches... if any. The end
user method of choice I've seen is a tarball with files to build, or a
single .c file to build. Kernel autoconfiguration for vendor drivers
rarely comes into play, because the driver is built against the "current
kernel" headers, but not with the standard kernel build system and tools.
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When I provide drivers to hardware vendors (not many Linux so far, I have been working mostly in the Solaris and previously the Netware markets), I have built them with the standard kernel build system and tools. Now the vendors may actually provide these drivers as you describe, but if there were reason, they could certainly supply them as patches.
Yes, but no one does so because patches break all the time. C modules built carefully for kernel compatibility are far more resistant to change. People are more likely to ship -binary- modules than patches.
In sum, Eric's example is unrealistic.
Jeff
Signature · 4 lines
Jeff Garzik | Alternate titles for LOTR:
Building 1024 | Fast Times at Uruk-Hai
MandrakeSoft | The Took, the Elf, His Daughter and Her Lover
| Samwise Gamgee: International Hobbit of Mystery