Re: test10-pre7

Keith Owens
2000-10-31T00:03:58Z

On Mon, 30 Oct 2000 15:47:59 -0800 (PST),
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Keith Owens wrote:
>We should have some REALLY simple and to-the-point rules. Namely:
>
> - object files get linked in the order specified
>
>No ifs, buts, "except when the user doesn't care", or anything like that.
>No extra new logic with fancy new names for FIRST and LAST objects. No,
>that's the wrong thing.

It is the right thing because it self documents which objects really
need a link order and why. The existing mechanism has demonstrably
failed to do this, resulting in fragile and error prone makefiles.

>The two things are entirely orthogonal, as far as I can see. Except
>historically we've mixed them up (OX_OBJS + O_OBJS is the link-list,
>O_OBJS is the symtab information). And this mixup is what the problems
>come from.

True, which is one of the reasons that kbuild 2.5 will remove OX_OBJS,
MX_OBJS and MIX_OBJS. But that change affects all Makefiles, we are
supposed to be in a code freeze. My patch fixes usb and only affects
usb, not the entire kernel.