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SubjectRe: Kernels do not compile anymore
In <Pine.LNX.3.95.991213154310.4760A-100000@chaos.analogic.com> Richard B. Johnson (root@chaos.analogic.com) wrote:

> Hello,

> I detect a very distressing trend. Since the 2.3.13 release, which took
> several days to fix so it would compile, I have not been able to download
> a kernel that will compile.

You just noticed this trend ??? ALL 2.1.x and 2.2.x kernel will not compile
with all modules turned "on" (Alan's versions are better but still can not
be compiled "out of box").

> The 2.3.31 release of a development kernel (December 6) had, not only
> problems with missing variables like "memory_start", etc., but also had
> incomplete structures, missing structure members, etc., all over the place.

Just like all 2.1.x and 2.2.x kernels for last few years... Nothing really new.

> Most of the errors had to do with initial ram-disk support which is required
> on many systems that use modules.

Ramdisk is broken in 2.3.31. There are exist patches to make it work
(as patch I'm using called bde-ramdisk-2.3.29-p1.patch and still applies I
guess it was broken for some time now)...

> I spent about two weeks of my spare time trying to make 2.3.31
> compile then gave up.

KSI was able to compile this beast :-) You can grab his .src.rpm from
http://www.ksi-linux.com/~khim/kernel/SRPMS -- even if it's for KSI-Linux
I guess it'll help you to compile it under different versions of Linux...

> If anyone is interested, I can provide a copy of .config but that's not the
> problem. The problem is that Linus and others used to make sure that kernels
> would compile.

It was long long ago. And it should be for stable kernels anyway: development
is development. Some things will be always broken...

> This is no longer being done. Instead, we have 'secret' versions of kernels
> retained by distributors while the publicly accessible kernels are junk.

What do you mean ??? All patches for RedHat's kernel you can find in .src.rpm.
Ditto for all other vendors. You are free to grab that patches and apply them.

> Even kernels released with some distributions like Caldera do not compile
> with the tools provided by Caldera.

Hmm. Half of rpm's from latest version of Mandrake can not be rebuilt under
that version of Mandrake. Now what ?

> The fixes to incorrect __asm__ code, which were contributed both by myself
> and others, you know, the ones that print pages and pages of warnings,
> were not included in 2.3.31 either.

> So, if this trend continues, the result will be that Linux becomes a
> proprietary operating system maintained secretly by a few special
> interests (Distributors). Already, anything new, available on the
> Internet, vi ftp.country-code.kernel.org, is just junk even though
> there are probably "special" versions of the kernel, perhaps at
> RedHat, that will compile.

It's not special versions of kernel. It's just versions where big hammer
was used to make some compileable :-/ SGI version of kernel can be called
special though...

> This distressing trend means that RedHat (substitute the name of any other
> distributor as well) now "owns" Linux since only their secret versions work.

Hey ! All their "secrets" are there ! Right on ftp ! How it can be called
"secret" if it's downloadable by everyone ?

> I have been contributing bug-fixes to Linux since June of 1995, the
> first being a fix to make the AHA-1542 SCSI board work. I have not
> complained that, over the years, every piece of code that had my
> name on it, ended up with my name removed. At least the end result
> was a reliable kernel and that's all I really wanted. I note that my
> name is not even in the list of contributors anymore. Now the trend is
> clear.

> So, where is the real version of the kernel?

Real version of kernel is still downloadable from ftp.kernel.org and
mirrors. It just can not be compiled :-)




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