[vox-tech] Kernel and library coherency

[Mark K. Kim]

I just thought of something about Linus' e-mail about keeping
/usr/include/asm same version as the version of the kernel the library was
compiled against.

Basically, Linus was arguing it's okay for a binary using an old kernel
header to interact with the newer kernel or a newer library, but not the
other way around, right?

What happens if you DL a library in binary format?  What if the library
was compiled using an older kernel? -- then when you compile a new
program, you end up with a program that uses a newer kernel header
interacting with an old library.  So basically you want your kernel
headers to stay old so it works with the libraries that are older than
your kernel.

And the other way around -- What if the library is newer? -- Then you got
a newer library interacting with an older kenel.  So you want your kernel
to stay as up-to-date as much as possible.

So basically, you want:

   1. Kernel headers that are older than the oldest library.
   2. Kernel itself that is newer than the newest library.

Is that right?  How can you find out which kernel header was used to
compile the libraries?

I think this makes the whole idea of binary distribution / packages quite
complicated.  Should I compile everything on the system myself?
Eeeeee....

-Mark

-- 
Mark K. Kim
http://www.cbreak.org/
PGP key available upon request.