[Ocfs2-users] 1.2.4 symbols

[Randy Ramsdell]

Joel Becker wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 04:41:13PM -0500, Randy Ramsdell wrote:
>   
>>> 	Why does SLES have them already in kernel/fs/ocfs2?  Because
>>> they are not building them externally.  They patch the kernel sources
>>> directly, and the kbuild infrastructure then treats them as "regular"
>>> modules, not "external" modules.
>>>       
>> Very nice explanation which explains everything, thanks. Since this be
>> the case and assuming you want users to compile from scratch, would an
>> install howto be in order? I would write a simple howto.
>>     
>
> 	We don't want users to compile from scratch.  We want you to use
> the modules that either we ship or the vendor (in this case, SuSE)
> ships.  We don't support compiled modules, just our own.  Now, you may
> not want Oracle support.  You may just want to try it out.  But you can
> still use the modules provided instead of compiling your own.
> 	If you take it upon yourself to compile your own, that's
> certainly something we're happy to let you do.  It is GPL software after
> all.  Of course, why not use the mainline kernel then?  It's got the
> latest OCFS2 code and will build your modules right inside the kernel
> tree.
>   
I understand that using packages are easier to maintain etc..., but for
things such as ocfs2/iscsi, the packages are just to old. It was
suggested that I upgrade to a newer release but  could not find
packages. I did see, however, that the newer patched suse kernel has
1.3.3, but  for now I have to test on older kernel package which I uses
1.2.1. Using the kernel that is packaged is also old. Our current only
goes to 2.6.16-*. Redhat EL is another distro that believes in stability
versus bleeding edge. Remember the move from version 3 to version 4? The
three version stayed on a 2.4 kernel many months or even years after 2.6
was released.

Packages are always way behind and sometimes it is necessary to build
packages to fix issues.
> 	You're running into a special case - SuSE provides the modules,
> but you want to build them yourself anyway.  If you used a kernel that
> didn't already have them (such as Red Hat's), installing them in extra/
> would work, it wouldn't conflict with any existing modules.
>
> Joel
>
>   
Yes I know. Hence the mention of a "INSTALL" type document.

Thanks Joel, your detailed explanations are very helpful.

Randy Ramsdell