Re: kernel headers---FAQ
On Sun, 18 Jan 1998, Craig Sanders wrote:
> > If kernel-headers would just allow itself to be configured when
> > /usr/src/linux is not a link, I would be a happy camper, because then I
> > could install libc6 without a --force option, thereby validating my
> > existence. Nothing imaginable would break.
>
> you're running a debian system. what is so difficult about acknowledging
> that and slightly modifying your procedure for working with kernel
> sources?
[...shell commands removed...]
That is, in fact, exactly what I'm doing at the moment. What I am arguing
is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON that I should have to unpack the
kernel in any kind of special way.
Further, while it's not difficult to do, most users won't know to do it
until AFTER they've shlocked their system by unpacking a kernel into the
already-symlinked /usr/src/linux, or converted their libc6-dev installation
into an unworkable mess due to a failed installation of kernel-headers.
> doing it this way you can switch between kernel versions at will - you
> can have more than one copy of the kernel sources installed at any given
> time.
I always switch between kernel versions at will. It's very easy, really.
The nice thing about debian's symlinks in /usr/include/{linux,asm} is that
they don't depend on anything in particular being in /usr/src/linux. Great!
But that means kernel-headers/kernel-source scripts have absolutely no
reason to force their installation into /usr/src/linux.
> debian's policy is to provide a system that works.
>
> if the way you want to do things is going to break things - and you are
> aware of that fact - then you have to wear the responsibility for your
> actions. i.e. it isn't debian's fault if you deliberately choose to
> break it.
>
> debian's behaviour wrt kernel sources is well documented, and makes
> enough sense that it is being adopted in the upstream kernel source and
> by other distributions.
To reiterate what I and others have said:
- unpacking the kernel into /usr/src/linux breaks exactly one thing:
the kernel-headers install script, which works perfectly and then
returns a non-zero exit status because it can't symlink to
/usr/src/linux. This means that kernel-headers can never change to the
"installed" state in dpkg, and that's why I have to --force packages not
to depend on kernel-headers. Since kernel-headers really _IS_ installed,
these --force'd packages work flawlessly. I develop kernel modules and
large applications: I know when libc6-dev isn't working.
- No one will ever read the Debian-specific documentation because there is
lots of other documentation around (HOWTO's etc) which directly contradict
it.
- I don't know what the upstream kernel source is adopting, but I doubt it
will make any automatic symlinks to /usr/src/linux.
- kernel-header's insistence upon installing the /usr/src/linux symlink is
arbitrary and unnecessary. I don't care if it wants to create a symlink
to /usr/src/linux if the symlink/directory doesn't already exist, but it's
completely pointless to require the link: it only breaks things.
My apologies if I sound angry. I feel like I'm talking to a void.
Avery
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