Re: [PATCH] framework for building modules externally

[Robert Millan]

On Tue, Nov 04, 2008 at 08:55:52PM +0200, Vesa Jääskeläinen wrote:
> Robert Millan wrote:
> > On Sat, Nov 01, 2008 at 01:32:29PM +0100, Robert Millan wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> Attached patch makes it possible to build modules externally, by:
> >>
> >>   - Installing headers in system include dir.
> >>
> >>   - Exporting two ABI tags (a build-time macro and a run-time variable)
> >>     for run-time comparison.
> >>
> >>   - Exporting a makefile with COMMON_*FLAGS variables.
> > 
> > Looks like I missed some important details.  The headers and some macros are
> > not enough, as we need to reproduce part of the build system to build a 
> > module
> > externally.  This new patch provides the following:
> 
> Interesting idea. However how do you define GRUB ABI :) ? What is it,
> kernel, certain set of modules, or how :) ?

Anything that can possibly break an external module.  I.e. any interface
exported by either the kernel or any of the modules.

(I expect we'd bump this number a lot)

> Versioning of the modules would be a good idea indeed to make sure
> mismatched modules are not tried together.

This should never happen if user always runs grub-install (which he should
do anyway unless he's looking for trouble).  My idea for external modules is
that a separate package can put them in $pkglibdir and then grub-install will
automaticaly include them the next time it's called.

-- 
Robert Millan

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