On Tue, Oct 8, 2019 at 8:39 AM Mike C. <[email protected]> wrote:

> [...]
> Maybe I'm getting off in the weeds a bit here, but I'm wondering if there's
> or should be a mechanism where the kernel running on a computer can be
> compared to the upstream source kernel image.
>

There are many, many turtles involved.

The source-to-binary mapping involves a toolchain to build it. The
toolchains (compilers and linkers and such) are subject to change too.
There are certainly mechanisms to check whether one set of binary blobs are
identical to another set of binary blobs. Those mechanisms work and are
robust. But the same source might generate slightly different binaries. The
checking mechanisms aren't smart enough to tell you anything other than
"THESE THINGS ARE DIFFERENT". Furthermore, execution hardware differs,
different CPU families and microcode running on them, so the same binaries
might do slightly different things on different hardware.

That said, have you heard of "reproducible builds"?
_______________________________________________
PLUG mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug

Reply via email to