Re: ANN: LKMB (Linux Kernel Module Builder) version 0.1.16

Paul Zimmerman
2003-01-19T21:08:29Z

>> It is also a bug that parts of the development infrastructure are
>> installed in /lib/modules/<version> and it's somewhat documented that
>> compiling modules needs this /lib/modules/<version> stuff. That may be
>> true for the ideal, simplified Red Hat world but in reality the
>> machine and running OS version of the development machine is likely
>> different from the box it will run on. Mixing development environment
>> and install target only causes confusion.
>
> you make a series of good points before this. However
> /lib/modules/<version>/build is nothing Red Hat specific. It's something
> that is the result of a similar discussion long ago where Linus finally
> decreed this location for finding the full source of modules.
> Combine that with the makefile dwmw2 showed and you can compile external
> modules EVERYWHERE on ANY distribution (assuming said distribution
> doesn't go out of the way to break the decree). Afaik RHL, SuSE,
> Mandrake, Debian and Slackware at least have this correct.
>
> Yes it breaks if you move around your source after doing make
> modules_install. Yes it breaks if you don't have the tree at all. But
> both situations are "invalid" wrt the decree, and need a fixed symlink.

Try "make modules INSTALL_MOD_PATH=<whatever>". Then modules
will use <whatever>/lib/modules instead of /lib/modules. This works in 2.4
and early 2.5, I haven't tried it with the new kbuild system in recent 2.5.
And
I don't know if this is properly documented anywhere.

Paul