On Sat, May 05, 2001 at 09:44:07PM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote: > On Sat, May 05, 2001 at 10:27:53AM +0100, Philip Blundell wrote: > > > > Actually, I'm not even completely convinced that having them in the > > kernel-image package name is particularly beneficial. But, even if we > > leave > > that the way it is, I don't think it's impossible to arrange for > > kernel-headers > > to be named differently. > > Kernel-image packages need to have version numbers encoded in them so that > upgrades can happen smoothly. Kernel-headers need the version numbers as > you may have multiple kernel-images packages in the archive. > > The thing is, kernel-headers should not be used at all unless you're > compile glibc, or modules. Anything else will break.
False. That is the very thing I want to alleviate (people using kernel headers from the libc6-dev package). People should not be using them, but if they do, they should use a kernel-headers package, and not rely on the headers in libc6-dev which are different on all archs, and change almost every new glibc build. You are never guaranteed to get the prefered kernel headers for your program (be it a scsi level thing like cdrecord, or mount tools like util-linux). The point here is to make packages start moving to Build-Dep'ing on kernel-headers-* packages. The question is, how to allow them to do that easily. IMO, we can use alternatives. And it should be fairly easy update-alternatives --install /usr/src/kernel-headers-2.2 kernel-headers-2.2 \ /usr/src/kernel-headers-2.2.<rev> <rev> Where "<rev>" would be something like "19" (as in 2.2.19). This way each newer version would be prefered over the former. The only problem I see are the -preX releases. Someone would have to suggest how to handle that case since the priority field wont accept letters. Also, I think that packages should Build-Depends on kernel-headers-X.X. IMO, There is no reason to build-dep on anything more specific, and also no reason to build-dep on just "kernel-headers" (IOW, maintainers should test which kernel headers can be used). This way they can always just do: CFLAGS += -I/usr/src/kernel-headers-2.2/include And not have to worry about all the revisions, or detecting anything special. Xu, can this alternative system be added to the kernel-headers package scripts? Does anyone see a problem with this solution (that isn't already a problem with the current usage of kernel headers in libc6-dev that is)? Anyone got a solution for the -preX case, which would probably make this method rock solid? Ben -- -----------=======-=-======-=========-----------=====------------=-=------ / Ben Collins -- ...on that fantastic voyage... -- Debian GNU/Linux \ ` [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ' `---=========------=======-------------=-=-----=-===-======-------=--=---'