Re: Debian conflicts with FHS on /usr/include/{linux,asm}

["Theodore Y. Ts'o" <tytso@MIT.EDU>]

   Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 10:15:42 -0700
   From: Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org>

   > I don't intend to support Debian specific packaging hacks that only work
   > for Debian, and I suspect that other hardware manufacturers that are
   > enlightened enough to distribute drivers which are kernel modules in
   > source form for their products will have a similar reaction --- the
   > market is too small to justify spending a lot of engineering time to
   > support a very distribution-specific build system.

   I think that is at the very least extremely impolite of you to say in the
   manner you just did.  Especially given that the "hacks" Debian uses work
   for everybody.  

I apologize for using the word "hacks".  However, I was referring to the
following message from Sean Perry:

>Debian currently uses a system where one needs the kernel source to
>compile a modules (like pcmcia) but can compile ANY version of the
>kernel and pcmcia.  make-kpkg looks in the current dir, assumes it to be
>'linux' and then steps back into .. and looks for modules.  It then
>builds in there using -I<path I came from>.

make-kpkg is very clearly a Debian-specific mechanism.  I have no idea
what it does, or how it works.  I'm not going to support something which
is Debian-specific.  Sorry.  If in the context of the Linux Standard
Base there is a standardized way of determining which kernel sources
should be used when compiling modules, and it gets significant actual
usage, that's great.  Historically, de facto, this mechanism has been
"/usr/src/linux",


   Allowing the user to specify the headers to include just makes sense.
   If your software does not allow this, I consider your software
   broken.

I certainly allow this.  However, I consider a distribution which forces
a user to specify where the kernel headers are, by breaking the
above-mentioned historical convention of /usr/src/linux to be terminally
broken.  Naive users won't know how to specify where the kernel sources
are.  I want someone's Grand-Aunt Tillie to be able to compile and
install a kernel source module package, no matter which distribution she
might be using.

This is why it's critical why for a naive user who isn't doing kernel
development, and isn't compiling their own kernel, /usr/src/linux needs
to point to the default kernel.  It has in the past, historically ---
why break this now?

							- Ted