On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 07:12:56PM -0700, Jesse Gross wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 2:38 PM, Ben Pfaff <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 02:14:55PM -0700, Jesse Gross wrote:
> >> On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 10:35 AM, Ben Pfaff <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> > I've been thinking a bit about the Linux kernel module build. ??It
> >> > doesn't look all that much like how other Linux kernel modules build
> >> > themselves. ??The "configure" step is really odd in that context.
> >> >
> >> > I think that we could get rid of the "configure" step. ??All of the
> >> > Linux-related configure pieces are really simple. ??I think that we
> >> > could embed them all into GNU make code within a Makefile. ??And then
> >> > you could just run "make", possibly pointing an environment variable
> >> > to the right directory. ??This would be much more like how other
> >> > external kernel modules typically build. ??I think that proper
> >> > dependencies would even be possible, so that it wouldn't be necessary
> >> > to rerun a configuration step when KSRC changed or when some other
> >> > kernel got checked out in the directory that KSRC pointed to.
> >>
> >> What about all of the checks for backported functions?  It seems like
> >> that's a fairly large chunk of code that's part of the configure step.
> >> Or do you mean something else?
> >
> > I think that those checks could be done right in the Makefile with
> > proper dependencies.  For example,
> >
> >  OVS_GREP_IFELSE([$KSRC/include/linux/skbuff.h], [raw],
> >                  [OVS_DEFINE([HAVE_MAC_RAW])])
> >
> > could become something like:
> >
> >  CHECKS =
> >
> >  ...other checks...
> >
> >  CHECKS += checks/have_mac_raw.inc
> >  checks/have_mac_raw.inc: $(KSRC)/include/linux/skbuff.h
> >        if grep raw $? >/dev/null; then echo '#define HAVE_MAC_RAW 1'; fi > 
> > $@
> >
> >  kcompat.h: $(CHECKS)
> >        cat $(CHECKS) > $@
> >
> > Use of GNU make macros and syntax would probably make it more maintainable.
> 
> I don't feel too strongly about this.  I could see how it would make
> things faster in event of a kernel change but I'm not sure that it
> would be much more maintainable.  I'm ambivalent though.

I think I'll drop it at least for now, then.  What we have works OK.
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