Re: [PATCH] Symlinks for building external modules

["Måns Rullgård" <mru@kth.se>]

Sam Ravnborg <sam@ravnborg.org> writes:

> On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 07:09:42PM +0200, Måns Rullgård wrote:
>> Andreas Gruenbacher <agruen@suse.de> writes:
>> 
>> > Hi Sam,
>> >
>> > modules not in the kernel source tree need to locate both the source
>> > tree and the object tree (O=). Currently, the /lib/modules/$(uname
>> > -r)/build symlink is the only reference we have; it historically
>> > points to the source tree from 2.4 times. The following patch
>> > changes this as follows (this is what we have in the current SUSE
>> > tree now):
>> >
>> > 	/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/source ==> source tree
>> > 	/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build ==> object tree
>> 
>> This will break the building of all external modules until they are
>> updated, and break updated modules building against older kernels
>> unless they check the kernel version in the makefiles..  I suggest
>> leaving the 'build' link as is, and using a difference name for the
>> build directory, perhaps 'object'.  This might look confusing, so we
>> could have a 'source' link as well and remove the 'build' link when
>> most external modules have been updated.
>
> The existing external modules are anyway broken when using separate 
> directories for source and output directories.

They work fine if you pass O=/some/path on the make command line.

> So noting lost here.  In the case where the kernel is build in the
> traditional way the build and source tree will point to the same
> place.

True.

> So I do not see this patch breaking existing setups, but I see
> external modules not being prepared for separate build and source
> directories.
>
> Patch looks good to me, and I will forward to Andrew soon.

I'll just have to go fix my kernel modules then.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@kth.se