Messages in this thread | | | From | (Dale R. Worley) | Subject | 2.1.21: Needless recompiles, CONFIG_MODVERSIONS, and genksyms | Date | Sat, 18 Jan 1997 02:43:05 GMT |
| |
Including bug report on genksyms manual page:
Some people have noticed that the 2.1.x kernels can have needless recompilations when you rebuild the kernel. It turns out that this is due to a combination of two causes: using a pre-970104 version of genksyms and specifying CONFIG_MODVERSIONS. Under this combination, genksyms cannot find any of the exported symbols from any of the modules, and so does not generate the *.ver files that the Makefile is expecting. As a result, Make recompiles every object file that is supposed to be producing a *.ver file every time you build the kernel.
The changes from 2.1.20 to 2.1.21 change the silent failure of the old genksyms versions into a visible one, since the 2.1.21 Makefile gives genksyms the "-k 2.1.21" option, which causes pre-970104 genksyms to terminate immediately with an error message. Much improved!
N.B.: If the pre-970104 genksyms is given a file that it perceives as not containing any exported symbols, instead of producing a *.ver file that is empty (which is what the man page implies), it produces no file at all. (Leading to the odd Make interaction mentioned above.) My impression is that this is intended to be a feature, not a bug. If this is the case, the man page should be updated to specify this behavior.
Dale -- Dale R. Worley Ariadne Internet Services Voice: +1 617-899-7949 Fax: +1 617-899-7946 E-mail: worley@ariadne.com "Internet-based electronic commerce solutions to real business problems."
| |