Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Stop the Linux kernel madness | From | Valdis.Kletnieks@vt ... | Date | Fri, 18 Jun 2004 16:54:08 -0400 |
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On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 13:29:11 PDT, David Lang said:
> the problem with this is that you can have the situation where it's a SuSE > box with a kernel.org kernel. I've had significant problems with > installers for 3rd party software that decided what distro they were > running on based on what kernel version showed up in uname
Of course, this only happens in 2 main categories of situations:
1) The sysadmin watches it fail, and says "D'Oh! I've been shot in the foot because of my customized configuration", and proceeds to work around it (if you're clued enough to get into that mess, you're usually clued enough to fix it).
2) The previous, now-departed sysadmin got you into the mess - at this point, the error is a sign telling you it's time to get your system rebuilt to some maintainable configuration.
The installer will almost certainly fail on any sort of linux-from-scratch configuration as well. I pity the poor software developer that thinks that an automated build should work in every case(*) - requiring the sysadmin to make a few symlinks if the system config is odd/unknown isn't at all outlandish or unheard of.
(*) I've seen at least one box where uname reported 2.4.12 or so, even though the kernel was 2.4.20 or so - said box had been dutifully upgraded on a regular basis and the kernel rebuild, via 'patch'. Due to a unseen mod in the top level Makefile, the patch fragment that updated the variables kept failing. Never got noticed till some kernel code that did a check on the version finally got upset and compiled in the wrong stuff....
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