Bug#414839: mkvmlinuz fails with undefined reference to zlib_inflate_blocks* against 2.6.18-4-powerpc

[Sven Luther <sl@powerlinux.fr>]

On Wed, Mar 14, 2007 at 10:38:57AM -0400, Daniel Kahn Gillmor wrote:
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> Thanks for the quick response, Sven.
> 
> On Wed 2007-03-14 08:28:38 -0400, Sven Luther wrote:
> 
> > This is due to building on a powermac, which usually uses yaboot for
> > booting, i believe. This seems a strange error, because the same
> > kernel is building nicely in the daily builds of d-i (but for chrp)
> > : 
> 
>   <snip>
> 
> So it does.  odd.  Yes, i usually do use yaboot on the powermac in
> question.  But i'd like to try an alternate bootloading strategy, if
> possible.  It would help me out on another project i'm working on.

Ok. You made me curious now, but one use of the -a pmac option is to do
powermac netboot images.

> > I guess the pmac way of building is somehow broken for whatever
> > reason, or there is another problem. I am afraid builds on pmac
> > where rarely tested, and not since the big ARCH=powerpc changes.
> 
> Anything i can do to debug this further?  I'd really like to try using
> mkvmlinuz instead of yaboot if it's possible.  It was offered as a
> bootloader option during a recent sarge-to-etch upgrade on this
> machine, so it would be nice if i could get it to work.

Well, we have to understand why these symbols are missing. Can you try
building with -a chrp, just to check that it works ? Then we can investigate
why these symbols are missing.

> > That said, it is true that the do_cmd needs a bit better error
> > checking, the whole stuff needs a full reimplementation post-etch
> > anyway, since it can now mostly just call the ARCH=powerpc new
> > wrapper which does much of what mkvmlinuz does.
> 
> Do you have an experimental branch i should try?  Or even a high-level
> theoretical explanation of what my other options are?  i'm happy to
> experment, debug, and report back if you'll point me in the right
> direction.

The mkvmlinuz dev tree lives in the kernel subversion repo on alioth. There is
not much more than what is uploaded right now though.

Friendly,

Sven Luther