Re: Include coherency problem, sigaction and otherwise

["Kevin D. Kissell" <kevink@mips.com>]

>> > > I have the impresson that the /usr/include stuff in the
>> > > "Hard Hat" distribution for MIPS is keyed to a 2.0.x kernel,
>> > > and that an update of /usr/include (as opposed to a downgrade
>> > > of the kernel headers) may be in order.
>> ...
>> >      As near as I can tell, at least for glibc-2.1.1-7, there
>> >is not machine-dependent <bits/sigaction.h> for mips, so the
>> >generic one is used, and the definitions are incompatible with the
>> >MIPS ABI.  The Linux kernel, on the other hand, is compatible with the
>> >MIPS ABI.  The cure is to supply a MIPS-specific <bits/sigaction.h>.
>>
>> It's worse than that - the "Hard Hat" 5.1 distribution that serves
>> as the reference userland for most SGI/MIPS/Linux platforms
>> doesn't even have a /usr/include/bits directory, which seems
>> to have been a more recent invention.
>
>The whole inconsistence was a stupid accident.  Since apparently only very
>little software was affected negativly (read: no known problems)  we didn't
>try to come up with some genious compatibility hacks but just fixed the
>definitions the hard way.

Having two independent sets of include files between kernel and userland
is always a bad idea, but is not *necessarily* broken, and sometimes
cannot be avoided.   The problem is not that the definitions are seperately
wired, but that they are incompatible - the risk one takes when one creates
multiple independent definitions.

>                                     Current glibc snapshots and Linuxkernels
have
>been fixed to use the same definitions.  If not, mail me a brown paperbag.

Certainly the hardhat-sgi-5.1-tar.gz archive on oss.sgi.com is out of sync
with any MIPS/Linux kernel sources of which I am aware.  The most recent
version of glibc 2.0 for MIPS that I have been able to find is 2.0.7, and it
too seems to be out of synch.  Which version of glibc has been fixed,
and where can I download it?   Which userland distribution is built with
the consistent glibc?

            Regards,

            Kevin K.
__

Kevin D. Kissell
MIPS Technologies European Architecture Lab
kevink@mips.com
Tel. +33.4.78.38.70.67
FAX. +33.4.78.38.70.68