Preventing conflicts between kernel header versions?

Preventing conflicts between kernel header versions?

[walt]

Hi kvm team,

I'm tracking Linus.git, kvm.git, and VirtualBox.svn, among other
open source projects.  I'm finding a conflict between kvm.git and
VirtualBox.svn over the version of my linux kernel headers.

Specifically, kvm wants the files asm/kvm_para.h (and friends), but
apparently looks in /usr/include/asm for those files and can't find
them --> because my linux distro installs kernel headers from 2.6.26
in /usr/include/linux and /usr/include/asm.

If I make /usr/include/linux and /usr/include/asm symlinks to my
Linus.git repository, then kvm is happy and I'm happy -- until I
try to build VirtualBox.svn, which is now broken because of those
very same symlinks.

Because kvm is very fussy about using exactly the correct version
of the linux kernel headers, wouldn't it be reasonable to teach
kvm.git to look in the right place for those headers instead of in
/usr/include?  I.e. /lib/modules/2.6.28-rc3/build/ for example.

Is there an easier way to fix this problem?

Thanks!

Re: Preventing conflicts between kernel header versions?

[walt]

walt wrote:
> Hi kvm team,
>
> I'm tracking Linus.git, kvm.git, and VirtualBox.svn, among other
> open source projects. I'm finding a conflict between kvm.git and
> VirtualBox.svn over the version of my linux kernel headers...

Well, I just discovered the --with-patched-kernel flag, which fixes
my compile problem with kvm, so I guess there is no header conflict
after all.  I took so long to try that flag because I didn't know
what "don't use external module" means -- and I'm still not sure
what 'external' means.  External to what?

Thanks!

Re: Preventing conflicts between kernel header versions?

[Glauber Costa]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 10:24 PM, walt <w41ter@gmail.com> wrote:
> walt wrote:
>>
>> Hi kvm team,
>>
>> I'm tracking Linus.git, kvm.git, and VirtualBox.svn, among other
>> open source projects. I'm finding a conflict between kvm.git and
>> VirtualBox.svn over the version of my linux kernel headers...
>
> Well, I just discovered the --with-patched-kernel flag, which fixes
> my compile problem with kvm, so I guess there is no header conflict
> after all.  I took so long to try that flag because I didn't know
> what "don't use external module" means -- and I'm still not sure
> what 'external' means.  External to what?
to the kernel.

One of the options to build kvm is to build the module distributed
with kvm-userspace,
instead of the kernel version. Before kvm was included in the kernel,
you would be
either using this external module distributed in the userspace package
or patch your kernel.
So this is mostly historical.


-- 
Glauber  Costa.
"Free as in Freedom"
http://glommer.net

"The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act."