Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S937577AbWLKTMs (ORCPT ); Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:12:48 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S937579AbWLKTMs (ORCPT ); Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:12:48 -0500 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.25]:55508 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S937577AbWLKTMr (ORCPT ); Mon, 11 Dec 2006 14:12:47 -0500 Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 11:11:07 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds To: Olaf Hering cc: Paul Mackeras , Herbert Poetzl , Andy Whitcroft , Andi Kleen , Andrew Morton , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Steve Fox Subject: Re: 2.6.19-git13: uts banner changes break SLES9 (at least) In-Reply-To: <20061211185536.GA19338@aepfle.de> Message-ID: References: <457D750C.9060807@shadowen.org> <20061211163333.GA17947@aepfle.de> <20061211180414.GA18833@aepfle.de> <20061211181813.GB18963@aepfle.de> <20061211182908.GC7256@MAIL.13thfloor.at> <20061211185536.GA19338@aepfle.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1076 Lines: 27 On Mon, 11 Dec 2006, Olaf Hering wrote: > > arch/powerpc/boot/wrapper:156: version=`${CROSS}strings "$kernel" | grep '^Linux version [-0-9.]' | \ This is also obviously broken (and really sad), but actually ends up being better than what get_kernel_version apparently does, by at least adding the requirement that the string "Linux version" be slightly more correct. However, it's also TOTALLY BROKEN. For example, if the Linux version string happens to be preceded by a byte that is a valid ASCII character, the grep will fail miserably. So that PoS is actually going to fail for various random kernels too, and depends intimately on just what variable _happened_ to be linked just before the version string. The fact is, doing strings on the kernel is just not a viable alternative to real versioning. Linus - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/