"m-a" vs "make-kpkg"

[Gilles <gilles@harfang.homelinux.org>]

Hello.

I'm interested in finding out why my experience of "m-a" doesn't seem
to agree with yours.

> > I've just tried that; it's a bit less comfortable for me because
> > (as I indicated earlier) module-assistant doesn't seem to care
> > about EXTRAVERSION and APPEND_TO_VERSION, so that it auto-installs
> > the module in the *wrong* directory.  So that it must be moved to
> > the correct place afterwards.
> 
> m-a has always made the kernel match the sources I point it at excactly.
> It certainly seems to get the append_to_version and KD_REV correctly
> when I have used it.  I have used it both with custom built kernels
> (made with make-kpkg) and debian built kernels (made with who knows
> what).
> 

Maybe I didn't read the man page carefully enough; this is the invocation
I used:

  m-a build -t -u $MA_DIR -k $KERNEL_DIR $MODULE

where $KERNEL_DIR is the kernel source directory used to build the
kernel image and "in-kernel" modules.
This directory contains a "conf.vars" file that contains:

VERSION          = 2
PATCHLEVEL       = 6
SUBLEVEL        = 14
EXTRAVERSION     = -vs2.1.0-rc5
APPEND_TO_VERSION = +g2
KPKG_SELECTED_MODULES =
Debian Revision  = 3:custom.1.0.0
KPKG_ARCH        =
do_parallel      = -j3
fast_dep         = -j3

And the debian package built by "m-a" did not include the "+g2".


> > I've been led to believe that "make-kpkg" was the debian way.
> > It has certainly been around longer than "m-a". There must be more
> > than one way to do it ;-)
> 
> make-kpkg builds the kernel (and optionally any modules you ask it to
> build at the same time).  For building modules later or using only the
> kernel-headers from a debian kernel, m-a is much nicer.  Not that doing
> KD_REV=custom.1.0 KVERS=2.6.14-my-extra-stuff debian/rules binary-modules
> in the module source dir won't accomplish the same thing in most cases.
> m-a does take care of the KSRC, KVERS, KD_REV, CC, etc, which is rather
> handy, and it is much shorter to type.  m-a a-i -t nvidia.
> 

I certainly agree that if one does not have the actual kernel source
tree available, it is handier to use "m-a". Otherwise, "make-kpkg"
is equally fine I guess.

The worry is that the *result* is different, for me at least.

Best,
Gilles