Re: GLIBC 2.0.5c changes...
On 14 Nov 1997, Michael Alan Dorman wrote:
> Nikita Schmidt <cetus@snowball.ucd.ie> writes:
> > What strikes me is that kernel headers are included in the libc
> > development package.
>
> Oy. Couldn't you have mentioned abortion or gun control? This is one
> of the original hot-button topics for Debian.
>
> > What happened to the package `kernel-headers'?
>
> Still exists, best I know. It's basically obsolete, though.
>
I think it might be nice to de-obsolete it. I hack the kernel ( I do
cdrom stuff). In order for the user-space apps I use to even compile with
the latest features that I am adding to the 2.1.x kernels, I _must_ have
2.1.x kernel headers (libc has never supported cdrom devices so it has
always been pure kernel headers for cdroms). It made perfect sense for
the kernel headers to be included in libc with libc5, since they are so
tightly bound together. With GNU libc, I think the time has come to
return to a seperate (optional) `kernel-headers' package. I say optional
because I have never used Debian to manage my kernel. It is great that
Debian provides this, but I choose not to use it for myself. It is just
too tedious to recompile the _whole_ kernel, and then re-pack a debian
package when I change one module.
Anyway, the reason we should split out the kernel headers for Glibc are
simple. GNU libc is intended to be independent of the kernel headers. If
I have the kernel source for 2.1.63 installed, I want
/usr/include/asm/errno.h to define ENOMEDIUM and EMEDIUMTYPE (which are
not defined in 2.0.31). I want /usr/include/linux/cdrom.h to define all
the latest ioctls, defines, etc. that I have hacked into the kernel.
Libc6 doesn't _need_ to include kernel headers like libc5 did, since Libc6
is independent of the kernel (thanks to the hard work of the GNU folks),
so we should now make the kernel headers and libc6-dev packages seperate.
At one time it made sense to combine them. It doesn't any more, IMHO.
-Erik
--
Erik B. Andersen Web: http://www.inconnect.com/~andersen/
email: andersee@debian.org
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