[vox-tech] Module build

[Jeff Newmiller]

Richard Harke wrote:
> On Sat September 3 2005 09:24, Rick Moen wrote:

[... explanations of history and justification particular kernel
header locations omitted ...]

>>(But then, too, why not compile your kernels somewhere more convenient,
>>like your home directory or /tmp?  And you can always have a symlink at
>>/usr/src/linux that points into there.)
>>
> 
> Neither answer (this one and the one from Jeff) really answered what I
> thought I asked. I realized that these are potentially different sets of
> headers but the question was how to have a module build find the correct
> ones.

Until you know which ones are the right ones, you cannot hope to specify it.
You didn't make clear that you already knew which to specify, and that your
question was in regard to mechanics.

> For modules that are a part of the kernel tarball, this has already
> been taken care of. The problem comes up when you have module
> source which is not in the kernel source tree. Part of the answer is that
> the gcc command line has -I <prefix>/include where <prefix> is the
> location of the kernel source tree, /usr/src/linux in the traditional case.
> This directory will be searched first and /usr/include will only be searched
> if the header file wasn't found.

Oh?  Searched by what mechanism? The compiler's header search sequence is 
defined by the options which it is given... and those options are usually 
specified in the Makefile... which is either hand-edited or generated by the 
"configure" script... which is in turn built by Automake and hand edited.

> I was trying to build a version of rtlinux
> and their instructions required putting the kernel source in /usr/src/linux
> because they needed to build a lot of out-of-the-tree modules and
> they needed to know where the includes would be located.

Until you mentioned rtlinux we didn't know which set of sources to consider 
either.  At any step of meta-configuration, hand editing can come into play, 
and different sources handle it differently.

Looking at the RTLinux howto, I see that it says you must setup a symlink 
from /usr/src/linux to your kernel sources.  Thus, RTLinux is perpetuating 
this poor practice... and you have to decide whether to go along with that 
or to fix your sources by hand.  If it were me, I would do a quick grep 
through the configuration files to find where they have hardcoded that 
location, and edit it to reflect where you are compiling this kernel.  In 
the long run, they need a "configure" script that collects this information 
for a particular compilation.

You _did_ ask what the right way to do it was... not what the way the 
RTLinux sources assume you will do it. Per the earlier responses, my 
recommendation is based on a long-overdue shift in general practice.

> By the way, I just checked, all of the kernels I have in /usr/src
> belong to me, not root.

Better than root, and within normal guidelines, but I am more comfortable 
developing in /home/<myhome>/src or somewhere near there.  In general, I 
think development should not be a systemwide activity... it is the province 
of the developer, and as much of their testing and compilation should be 
conducted under their directory tree as possible.

-- 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Newmiller                        The     .....       .....  Go Live...
DCN:<jdnewmil at dcn.davis.ca.us>        Basics: ##.#.       ##.#.  Live Go...
                                       Live:   OO#.. Dead: OO#..  Playing
Research Engineer (Solar/Batteries            O.O#.       #.O#.  with
/Software/Embedded Controllers)               .OO#.       .OO#.  rocks...1k
---------------------------------------------------------------------------