Re: depmod w/Forced ersion (lightbulb on!)

Bjorn Ekwall (bj0rn@blox.se)
Sun, 17 Mar 1996 23:55:56 +0100 (MET)

You wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I'll recap for the benefit of other list readers.
>
> Using depmod from modules-1.3.69c I found that forcing the version with
> 'depmod -a 1.3.75' would create a modules.dep file in /lib/modules/1.3.75
> but the dependencies within that file would be for the currently running
> kernel version, at that time 1.3.72.
>
> Ok, I think I understand what's going on, but I'm not sure if others will
> get it or if it's what you really intended.
>
> I never noticed before that specifying paths in conf.modules would cause
> all of depmod's built in paths to be discarded. Hence the new
> conf.modules "keep" option!
>
> RTFM flamers: I'm sure I was lazy and didn't read something I should have. ;-)
>
> Anyway, I had paths in conf.modules from before depmod knew about some of
> the new 1.3.* directories. This caused depmod to not only discard it's
> builtins but disgard the forced version paths that were gathered by the
> config_read() function in config.c.
>
> So, for anyone trying to use the forced version feature of depmod-1.3.69c
> along with custom paths in /etc/conf.modules, be sure to add "keep" to the
> top of the file.
>
> Bjorn, was the disgard of forced version paths intentional here?

The decision to drop all default targets whenever a path description
was found in the configuration file was (is) the result of very
thorough discussion that I and Jacques had a loooong time ago...

Since I've started hacking the old sources again, adding features
and (hopefully) removing bugs, this might have to be thought about
once more. The (semi-official) "depmod -a VERSION" support isn't
exactly the way I want it yet, partly because I'm not sure exactly
how I really want it to be...

For now, you will have problems due to possible mismatches between
the exported symbols from the running kernel and the symbols from
the freshly compiled kernel.

You will also have problems if your /etc/conf.modules (or whatever)
contains path descriptions, but _not_ the new (un-official) "keep"
option.

On top of that, you will _still_ have problems even _with_ the "keep"
option included, if your extra path descriptions contain "`uname -r`"

Well, if this was easy, I would have solved it by now....

I suspect that I will have to do a _major_ re-think, since the
fixes for the problems doesn't smell right... (which is one
of my own built-in quality controls :-) )

As usual I will put my snapshots on my web-page, and the current
one is modules-1.3.69d (I'm working on 69e right now...)

I appreciate all comments _very_ much, keep 'em coming!

Cheers,

Bjorn <bj0rn@blox.se> <http://www.pi.se/blox/>