Re: <rant> Vendors and kernel driver source that will not compile with Debian </rant>
On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 05:12:55PM -0500, Michael Lueck wrote:
> <rant> I have absolutely had it with vendors not taking Debian seriously.
> It's always RedHad, SuSE, TurboLinux... never Debian! </rant>
>
> Well we have a driver on our hands that the vendor says compiles fine on
> SuSE 8, 9.0, and 9.1 with 2.6.x kernels, but they say will not compile on
> Debian. Well DUA! After dealing with their source and trying to get it to
> compile on Debian that is why I was contacting them.
>
> Realistically, how different is Debian kernel source from the kernel source
> Linus releases... and thus those other vendors.
Usually quite a lot. Its unfortuante but it is the way it is.
The Debian Kernel Team is trying to keep its kernel close to upstream,
that is by generally not accepting patches that aren't likely
to be merged into upstream, but when bugs come up, patches go in,
and the source diverges from the original Linus release.
Generally speaking, other distributions will often try and
put new features in for this and that, so their kernels
can vary more from the Linus release. (Vauge statement!)
> I mean, how in the world
> could their driver source compile fine on those other two distros and NOT
> on Debian. Any advise anyone can share on subtle differences that makes
> compiling drivers on Debian fail?
Because stuff in the kernel changes all the time.
The internal APIs change for one reason or another.
And when a distrubition pulls in a set of patches
for whatever reason, the API can change, so you
get these kind of compile problems.
Not fun, but true. Its not really the fault of the distrubutions,
just the nature of the beast?
In any case, what kind of compile problems are you seeing,
and which Debian kernel are you working with. And which driver
for that matter?
> My Linux engineering team has better things to do than deal with the
> anti-Debian attitude out of vendors!
There are companies out there (like, say, the one I work for)
that do work with Debian. But I agree with the spirit of your comment.
--
Horms
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