Re: [PATCH] make: add modules_update target

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Fri, Apr 14, 2006 at 10:06:56AM -0500, Kylene Jo Hall wrote:
> Here is a a patch that adds a kernel build target called
> "modules_update".  
> 
> The existing "modules_install" target blows away the entire 
> /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel directory and copies out every single
> module when called at the top level.
> 
> This new "modules_update" target only copies out modules that have
> changed, using "cp -u".  This less zealous method is a more efficient
> approach to module installation for kernel developers working on single,
> or small numbers of modules.  

Hi Kylene,

This works as long as the .config hasn't been changed so that some
configuration options haven't been changed so that a driver which had
been previously built as a module is now built into the kernel.  In
that case, you really want to make sure the no-longer applicable .ko
file has been removed from the system.  If the developer knows that to
be true, they can use your proposed modules_update without any problems.

As a suggestion, something that might be worth trying would be to
change to modules_install so that it uses cp -u, but also so that it
tries to delete all files that could have previously installed as
modules (by using the obj-y list).  This should hopefully speed up
modules_install, and make it do the right thing all the time.

Regards,

						- Ted
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