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Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:37:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Rientjes <rientjes@google.com>
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To: Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>
cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu>,
       Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
       Dirk Hohndel <hohndel@infradead.org>, Len Brown <lenb@kernel.org>,
       Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH, v2] kbuild: Improve version string logic
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On Thu, 15 Oct 2009, Frans Pop wrote:

> That is fine for custom kernels. I still maintain that it is hopelessly
> wrong for distro kernels.
> 
> Distro kernels generally have their own naming schemes.
> Debian uses: 2.6.30-2-amd64 (<version>-<ABI>-<flavor>)
> Fedora uses: 2.6.30.5-43.fc11.i586
> 
> And those kernel versions implicitly already contain the information that
> they are not vanilla kernels. So a "+" suffix is totally redundant.
> 

And that's why I suggested, in addition to my patch, that we allow "make 
LOCALVERSION=" to override the `+' suffix for kernels compiled without 
CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO.  In your examples, they would pass 
LOCALVERSION=-2-amd64 or LOCALVERSION=-43.fc11.i586, respectively, to 
make.

> My main argument is that if they build kernels from an SCM, which is quite
> likely, they should not suddenly get a "+" appended to those versions.
> And IMO they should also not have to patch the Makefile to avoid it.
> If this change is made, it should be made in such a way that old version
> naming schemes are still possible.
> 

They are, with my suggestion to allow make LOCALVERSION= to override the 
`+'.  The question I posed directly to you was this: how does adding a 
unique string passed by the user for a more descriptive kernel version 
interact poorly with certain packaging requirements?  You've given two 
examples that are _perfect_ use cases for my suggestion.

> > We could easily go with my suggestion of allowing "make LOCALVERSION="
> > to override all additions to the kernel version when
> > CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO is disabled.  For such configurations, kernels
> > would be built with this variable to specify how it's different from the
> > vanilla version and would suppress the `+'.
> 
> Using LOCALVERSION= for that would be wrong as it is on a different level
> from AUTOVERSION. They should be independent. However, that basic approach
> of using an environment variable is certainly an option.
> 

Now I'm confused, because currently LOCALVERSION= can only be used when 
CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO is defined; in other words, it's completely 
dependent on it.  My patch changes that and seems to be your desire as 
well?

> So I propose the following patch on top of the patch proposed by David.
> It offers a clean out for users who explicitly do not want *any* SCM-based
> suffix added to their kernel version, and is IMO both 1) obvious enough
> for expert users and 2) obscure enough that regular users are unlikely to
> abuse it. Is that acceptable?
> 

No, it actually makes things much worse because now instead of forcing the 
user to post his .config to determine the setting of 
CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO to intepret the version string, it forces them to 
recall what their KBUILD_NO_LOCALVERSION_EXTRA environment variable 
happened to be at the time of build.
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