enabling module-init-tools in busybox
I think it's time (till it is not too late) to enable
m-i-t (at least modprobe, insmod, rmmod and maybe lsmod)
in busybox, in udeb flavour for a start. I'm not talking
about depmod yet, and I think it is better to use depmod
from real modutils.
In kernel 2.4+, module loading interface has been
simplified _dramatically_ (compared with 2.2 and before),
and current utilities from module-init-tools is a set of
rather simple programs. Most complex of these are depmod
and modprobe, but both are much simpler than their old
cousins from modutils.
Most bugs which existed in old modultils implementations
in busybox are not relevant anymore, and current 2.6
m-i-t utilities (as implemented in busybox) are working
fine, at least as far as I can see (I've been using
busybox implementations of these since middle-2.4 times,
had a few minor issues which were fixed long ago).
In order to enable m-i-t utils in busybox, I need to
resolve conflict with real module-init-tools udeb, or
else d-i image wont be able to build.
So I'm asking for opinions here, about how to proceed.
My suggestion is to implement some check when building
d-i - check if busybox provides, say, modprobe - and if
it does, stop loading/using module-init-tools udeb. Or
to declare versioned depends/conflicts - but the problem
is that I don't know d-i internals enough to be able to
do that myself in a reasonable future.
Next plan is to enable m-i-t utils in regular and static
builds, and this is the last step before busybox can be
used to boot whole system (without fancy stuff which it
does not support, like software raid or lvm or iscsi)
with no additional tools. But this is a bit more
complicated because of the way initramfs-tools is built,
which is a different story.
Thanks,
/mjt
Reply to: