(note: i'm going to repeat here things that were discussed several times in the past - just to avoid another similar loop in the next few weeks (no doubt it'll rise again in a few month, as it usually does ;) ): )
read below: On 30 Dec 2002, Aharon Schkolnik wrote: > >>>>> "Oleg" == Oleg Goldshmidt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > Oleg> Aharon Schkolnik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Not only > Oleg> that, I could not even find anything related in the code > Oleg> (2.4.20 though). Out of curiosity, where did you find it? > >> Google search > > Oleg> Oh, it's a patch... ;-) > > Wouldn't it be more correct to say that it WAS a patch which has since > been incorporated into the mainstream kernel code ? i think people keep forgetting (or don't know) somehting fundamental about kernels and distributions. there is the 'vanilla' kernel, which linus handles (for the 2.5, i.e. current development version) or marcelo what's-his-name keeps (the 2.4 version - linus moves maintenance of "stable" non-development kernels ot other people. i'd imagine alan cox still maintains the 2.2 kernel version). now, the major distributions usually take some semi-stable vanilla kernel, and add 10s of patches to it, that float around the internet, and that were not incorporated into the vanilla kernel. in redhat specifically, if you open the RPM of the kernel sources, you'll see they took soem vanilla kernel, and added more then a hundread patches to it - patches they write, or they collect from other sources. why those patches are not in the vanilla kernel? this could be either due to policy, or due to timing (you can add too many patches to a given kernel revision, and expect it to remain stable without a given cycle of 'testing' - and vanilla kernels don't go through format testing). thus, when you have a problem with a kernel from your distibution (and usually, something with 2.4.18-19.8.7 - i.e. a set of 3 numbers after hte regular set of numbers, implies a distribution-specific kernel version) - you check your distribution for a newer kernel. also note that bugs occur. and bugs exist. and bugs get added. don't be surprised to stumble upon bugs, especially not in software that has thousands of different configurations in which it may be compiled. the kernel dependencies system is not complete and considered a half-hack (at least the one that comes with the 2.4 kernels - no idea what eventually happened with the 2.5 kernel source tree) - and thus it cannot properly catch all dependencies in the kernel. btw, in your specific case - you might have been able ot ignore the errors you got. they only suggested that 2 of your modules oculd not be loaded. this would matter only if you actually needed those modules. if you never need to use them, you don't realy care that they try to use a feature that's missing from the kernel. i had systems with many similar problems (e.g. because i mistakenly compiled in PCMCIA support on a desktop computer, and i didn't include some other feature that was missing) - and the machine had no problem working (just that the error messages were annoying). > If it has been incorporated into the kernel, shouldn't it be > documented ? > > If it doesn't work as a module, shouldn't it be impossible to build it > as a module ? yes, except that the kenel build system is not perfect, and it appears that the kernel grew a bit large for it to handle properly. > Seems to me that someone slipped up here. there are many such slips all the time. don't be so surprised that you stumbled over one of them. eventually, if there were no bugs in software, we all would be millionairs (or loose our jobs). and remember, its not "wierd" - its a bug. report it, or work around it - just don't sound so surprised. and don't think "but i didn't do anything special" - beause you did - you just tried out a configuration for this specific kernel, that redhat's people haven't tried before ;) -- guy "For world domination - press 1, or dial 0, and please hold, for the creator." -- nob o. dy ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
