[maemo-developers] Community Kernels garage project created

[From: Jason Edgecombe]

Marcio Macedo wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 12:20 PM, Jason Edgecombe
> <jason at rampaginggeek.com> wrote:
>   
>> Graham Cobb wrote:
>>     
>>> On Tuesday 15 July 2008 09:25:36 Frantisek Dufka wrote:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Primary goal is to accumulate kernel patches so they do not get lost,
>>>> secondary goal is to build kernel images for all devices and latest
>>>> versions of all IT200x releases. Patches should primarily apply to
>>>> kernel sources release in Maemo SDK (i.e not current linux-omap).
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Do you see this also addressing the related issue of building and distributing
>>> kernel modules?
>>>
>>> I have a package (sisusbvga) which contains a kernel module (to drive an
>>> external VGA adapter).  At the moment, I have built the kernel module using
>>> the instructions on the wiki and then I package it up as a binary blob -- in
>>> other words the debian package does NOT build the module from source.  If
>>> possible, I would like to change that so that the debian package builds the
>>> module, in the autobuilder.
>>>
>>> Actually in my case the situation may be reasonably straightforward: the
>>> sisusbvga driver is actually part of the standard Linux kernel, although a
>>> patch is required to get it to build for the Internet Tablet (I ought to
>>> submit the patch to LKML one day).  So, I guess it falls within the scope of
>>> this project anyway, assuming you are addressing the problem of kernel
>>> modules as well as the kernel image itself.
>>>
>>> There are another couple of issues -- are they part of this project?
>>>
>>> Firstly, as it stands today, I can't find a way to install the module such
>>> that it can be found and loaded automatically when the hardware is seen on
>>> boot: /lib/modules is only in the initfs.
>>>
>>> The other problem is how to deal with kernel versions.  I believe the plan for
>>> Maemo going forward is that even kernel upgrades may occur.  What package do
>>> I specify as a dependency so that my package only installs on the correct
>>> kernel version?  How do I get the autobuilder to build the various versions
>>> of my module needed for the different kernel versions?  What magic do I need
>>> to put in my debian/control to get the installer to install the correct
>>> version of my module for the kernel version?
>>>
>>>       
>> I have a similar issue where I have to maintain the openafs kernel
>> modules, but I am trying to get them to automatically build in the
>> autobuilder. my module lives in a odd folder and is loaded by the init.d
>> script so loading is taken care of. I will continue to maint the openafs
>> kernel module along with the openafs package.
>>     
>
> The fuse module, from the package fuse-modules-rx-34 is installed at
> /lib/modules/2.6.21-omap1/extra/fuse.ko
> and it is loaded by the default kernel.
>
> I didn't find a good solution for building kernel modules in
> autobuilder, except building the whole kernel first.
> I don't have much experience with kernel modules, but maybe there's a
> way of avoiding compiling the kernel every time I want to build a
> single module.
>
> Maybe someone with more experience building modules can give some hints.
>
> Marcio
>   
I thought that too, but I seem to be able to get away with running the
following in the kernel source to make things work "make distclean; make
n800_defconfig; make modules_prepare"

I'm having trouble with fakeroot and scratchbox building my package but
if I get to the autobuilder, I'll let you know how this works. There is
a kernel-diablo-headers package but it was not enough to compile kernel
modules against.

Jason