Re: [PATCH, v2] kbuild: Improve version string logic

David Rientjes
2009-10-14T07:44:09Z

On Wed, 14 Oct 2009, Ingo Molnar wrote:

> > Regardless of future improvements, I think my two patches allow the
> > kernel version to more accurately describe what is running. That is
> > predicated on my belief that "v2.6.32-rc4", though, should never
> > describe _anything_ except the kernel.org v2.6.32-rc4 kernel.
>
> I agree with all that - in fact i started this thread by stating that
> view and suggesting the '+' extension to the short version name.
>

Yeah, my patches build upon the base that you originally proposed. I like
the `+' suffix for configs with CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO that aren't
vanilla kernels.

> But there's been packaging related objections from Frans and others, and
> i suspect you'll need to answer/address those instead of further
> detailing the virtues of proper version names (which i still 100% agree
> with).
>

We could easily go with my suggestion of allowing "make LOCALVERSION=" to
override all additions to the kernel version when CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO
is disabled. For such configurations, kernels would be built with this
variable to specify how it's different from the vanilla version and would
suppress the `+'.

Frans and others, how does adding a unique string passed by the user for a
more descriptive kernel version interact poorly with certain packaging
requirements?