Re: guide on bisecting (was Re: [REGRESSION] kexec does firmware reboot in kernel v6.7.6)

[Pavin Joseph <me@pavinjoseph.com>]

On 3/3/24 14:06, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> That being said: I think I might know what sent you sideways: the main
> section lacked a "git remote add -t master stable
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git". :-((

Now that I read through it with a fresh pair of eyes, this is exactly 
the problem!

>> 2. The "installkernel" command is called "kernel-install" in OpenSuse,
> 
> Yeah, it looks like that, but that's not really the case. :-) In short:
> on Fedora "installkernel" calls into kernel-install -- and
> "installkernel" has a long history, so doing what Fedora does is likely
> a wise thing for distros. And openSUSE had a "installkernel" as well,
> which was part of the dracut package. Not sure if that is still the case
> for current Leap and Tumbleweed. Could you check?

It's not available even as a symlink in OpenSuse TW / Slowroll I'm afraid.

suse-pc:~ # whereis installkernel
installkernel:
suse-pc:~ # whereis kernel-install
kernel-install: /usr/bin/kernel-install 
/usr/share/man/man8/kernel-install.8.gz
suse-pc:~ # man kernel-install | grep -i installkernel
        installkernel [OPTIONS...] VERSION VMLINUZ [MAP] [INSTALLATION-DIR]
        When invoked as installkernel, this program accepts arguments as 
specified by the kernel build system's make install command. The VERSION 
and VMLINUZ parameters

>> and it doesn't really perform all the steps to install kernel. It calls
>> dracut to create initramfs though, but that's hardly much help.
> 
> Could you please elaborate a bit on that "hardly much help", as I'm not
> really sure what you exactly mean here. Are you and/or openSUSE normally
> not using dracut?

I meant that calling kernel-install in OpenSuse only seems to then call 
dracut to build an initramfs for the kernel. I can call dracut myself 
without adding an unnecessary middleman (kernel-install) in the process 
and less verbosely too: dracut --kver $(make -s kernelrelease)

Perhaps you could add generic details such as I provided in the 
reference section for distros where installkernel doesn't exist or don't 
perform all the steps required.

>> 3. The dependencies for kernel building in OpenSuse and other major
>> distros are incomplete,
> 
> So what was missing?

Sorry, I don't remember. The compile/build threw some error and I looked 
up how to install kernel building dependencies in OpenSuse only to find 
out there was a pattern for it already.

Perhaps you could list the basic dependencies in the main section and 
provide the collection/patterns in the reference section.

>> 4. The command to build RPM package (make binrpm-pkg) fails as the
>> modules are installed into "/home/<user>/linux/.../lib" while depmod
>> checks for modules in "/home/<user>/linux/.../usr/lib".
> 
> That sounds like a bug that should be reported and fixed, not something
> that docs should catch and work around. Could you report that?

Please, could you tell me where to report this bug? Kernel bugzilla? 
Which category/component? Thanks for all your help 😉

Kind regards,
Pavin Joseph.