Re: [PATCH] modutils 2.3.20 and beyond

Jeff V. Merkey
2000-11-27T03:06:58Z

On Mon, Nov 27, 2000 at 02:11:49AM +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> > > Anaconda will barf and require over 850+ changes to the scripts without
> > > it. If you look at the patch, you will note that it's a silent switch
> > > that's only there to avoid a noisy error message from depmod. It
> > > actually does nothing other than set a flag that also does nothing.
> > > -m simply maps to -F.
> >
> > It's still a bad precedent. Anaconda should have been written correctly in
> > the first place.
>
> I don't know if its an Anaconda issue or a limitation in the tools. Keith is
> the modutils maintainer and its up to the Anaconda hackers to prove to him that
> he has a problem so I think he is absolutely right in refusing to change it
> until that is proven

Oddly, the tools already provide the capability needed by anaconda, just
not in the format the anaconda scripts and code expect. i.e., anaconda
is using -m in place of -F, and somewhere down the line someone needed
to force depmod checks of modules against mismatched kernels (???) which is
probably left over from some point when RedHat was shipping default
kernels "naked" (without modversions). That's the only justification
I can see for having -i at all, and since I come from a binary compatible
world, I can kindof understand why someone would have needed this
to support loading of binary modules accross versions (before modversions
became widely used). I don't know how to take the "anaconda hacker" moniker.

Jeff

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