Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 14 Jan 2002 18:51:42 -0500 | From | Jeff Garzik <> | Subject | Re: Penelope builds a kernel |
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Telford002@aol.com wrote: > > In a message dated 1/14/2002 5:32:46 PM Eastern Standard Time, > jgarzik@mandrakesoft.com writes: > > > "Eric S. Raymond" wrote: > > > Penelope needs to build a kernel to support her exotic driver, but > > she > > > hasn't got more than the vaguest idea how to go about it. The > > > instructions with the driver source patch tell her to apply it at > > the > > > top level of a current Linux source tree and then just say "build > > the > > > kernel" before getting off into technicalia about the user-space > > > tools. > > > > Very few hardware vendors give out kernel patches... if any. The > > end > > user method of choice I've seen is a tarball with files to build, or > > a > > single .c file to build. Kernel autoconfiguration for vendor > > drivers > > rarely comes into play, because the driver is built against the > > "current > > kernel" headers, but not with the standard kernel build system and > > tools. > > > > When I provide drivers to hardware vendors (not many Linux so far, > I have been working mostly in the Solaris and previously the Netware > markets), I have built them with the standard kernel build system > and tools. Now the vendors may actually provide these drivers as > you describe, but if there were reason, they could certainly supply > them as patches.
Yes, but no one does so because patches break all the time. C modules built carefully for kernel compatibility are far more resistant to change. People are more likely to ship -binary- modules than patches.
In sum, Eric's example is unrealistic.
Jeff
-- Jeff Garzik | Alternate titles for LOTR: Building 1024 | Fast Times at Uruk-Hai MandrakeSoft | The Took, the Elf, His Daughter and Her Lover | Samwise Gamgee: International Hobbit of Mystery - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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