necessary changes to 'linux' module

elaine elaine at fwsystems.com
Fri Nov 21 09:26:13 GMT 2003


Our linux module and patchset are ready for release, however the module
at present doesn't keep backup kernels or fully manage lilo/grub configs.

What we change to fix this is open but we need to do something.

New kernel functions are in place in the core (lunar & theedge) which
provide for keeping backups as well as maintaining the lilo and grub.


However this will not work well with a 'feature' of our patchset, which
is the setting of "EXTRAVERSION" in the Makefile, which in turn sets 
the kernel release name (uname -r, /lib/modules/`uname -r`).

The conflict is that EXTRAVERSION is set differently depending on whether
the 'aggressive' patches are selected, and there is no simple way of 
dealing with this in the core script.

The core's backup and lilo/grub functions depend on these conditions

(/boot/)kernel name=$VERSION-EXTRAVERSION 

Solutions:

1. remove the patch to Makefile which sets  EXTRAVERSION=-aggressive, and 
record this information someplace else.

(while this makes it a shade harder to know which kernel a user is 
running, I question whether our 'support' activities very often use/
need this information)

2. split the kernel module into 2 different versions, normal and agressive.

3. rewrite the kernel module using private backup functions.



Whichever we choose, it probably wants to be addressed pretty quickly 
we seem to be getting some breakage on updates.

Please follup up or come discuss on IRC

elaine


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