Subject: Re: 2.6.19-git13: uts banner changes break SLES9 (at least)
From: Arjan van de Ven <arjan@infradead.org>
To: Olaf Hering <olaf@aepfle.de>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>, Andy Whitcroft <apw@shadowen.org>,
       Herbert Poetzl <herbert@13thfloor.at>, Andi Kleen <ak@suse.de>,
       Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
       Steve Fox <drfickle@us.ibm.com>
In-Reply-To: <20061211175026.GA18628@aepfle.de>
References: <457D750C.9060807@shadowen.org>
	 <20061211163333.GA17947@aepfle.de>
	 <Pine.LNX.4.64.0612110840240.12500@woody.osdl.org>
	 <20061211175026.GA18628@aepfle.de>
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Organization: Intel International BV
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:57:53 +0100
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On Mon, 2006-12-11 at 18:50 +0100, Olaf Hering wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 11, Linus Torvalds wrote: 
> > What crud. I'm even slightly inclined to just let SLES9 be broken, just to 
> > let people know how unacceptable it is to look for strings in kernel 
> > binaries. But sadly, I don't think the poor users should be penalized for 
> > some idiotic SLES developers bad taste.
> 
> SLES7 or SLES11 is not any different than SLES9 in that respect.
> Suppose I send you some random vmlinux binary. How do you (you as in linus.sh)
> know what 'uname -r' is inside this binary?
> There are surely many many ways to pass that info. Having a string like
> 'Linux version 2.6.19-g9202f325-dirty' somewhere in the binary is the
> most reliable one. Dont you agree?

it's for sure the most ugly one. I could see the use of having modinfo
work on the vmlinux, and have the vmlinux have a VERMAGIC as well. It's
only a simple elf section after all, and a heck of a lot more defined
and standard...


-- 
if you want to mail me at work (you don't), use arjan (at) linux.intel.com
Test the interaction between Linux and your BIOS via http://www.linuxfirmwarekit.org

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