[Buildroot] [PATCH v4] linux-headers: allow use of headers from kernel "package" selected

[Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>]

Peter,

On Mon, 18 Jan 2016 23:21:08 +0100, Peter Korsgaard wrote:

>  > I also don't like the way the patch is implemented, but I think the
>  > problem raised by this patch is real. Sometimes people have kernel
>  > sources that contain some custom kernel headers needed for their
>  > userspace libraries/applications, and we have no mechanism to allow
>  > them to use their custom kernel source for the linux-headers package,
>  > which is a bit annoying.
> 
> Yeah, true. It does require that these custom header files are really
> exported (so they get installed by headers_install) which in my
> experience is not always the case.
> 
> What I have told people to do in the past instead is to either copy the
> needed definitions into their user space code or add
> -I$(LINUX_DIR)/include (if they build their kernel in Buildroot) like
> E.G. xdriver_xf86-video-imx does it.

Yes, I know there are ways around it.

But it does seem weird to many users that the "linux" package provides
some many possibilities for fetching/patching the kernel, and still the
linux-headers package downloads a completely different kernel version,
with less possibilities of using a custom version.

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux, Kernel and Android engineering
http://free-electrons.com