Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC] Bring in all the Linux headers we depend on in QEMU

Avi Kivity
2009-05-04T13:28:56Z

Anthony Liguori wrote:
> Stefan Weil wrote:
>> Anthony Liguori schrieb:
>>
>> For Debian systems, those headers are installed by package
>> linux-libc-dev.
>> There are also packages for cross compilation in emdebian
>> (linux-libc-dev-mips-cross, linux-libc-dev-powerpc-cross, ...).
>>
>> Yes, those headers did not always match the features of the current
>> kernel,
>> so --enable-kvm did not work. This is fixed now - there is a
>> linux-libc-dev
>> 2.6.29-3 which is up-to-date.
>>
>> So, at the moment I see no need to fill the QEMU source tree with
>> linux header files.
>>
>
> We can not just rely on everyone who uses QEMU to use the latest
> version of Debian...
>
> The fact is, linux-libc-dev is *not* meant for applications to use as
> the official kernel ABI. We shouldn't depend on it.

At least on Fedora, kernel-headers is. It is installed in
/usr/include/linux and is synced (sorta) to the installed kernel.

Carrying a subset of kernel headers is a bit too much, IMO.

kvm is a special case since it is available externally.

--
Do not meddle in the internals of kernels, for they are subtle and quick to panic.