Re: 2.6.19-git13: uts banner changes break SLES9 (at least)

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Mon Dec 11 2006 - 16:16:55 EST


Linus Torvalds wrote:

- strongly encourage "get_kernel_version" users to just stop using that crap. Ask the build system for the version instead or something, don't expect to dig it out of the binary (if you create an RPM for any other package, you sure as _hell_ don't start doing strings on the binary and try to figure out what the kernel is - you do it as part of the build)


This is (presumably) not just "strings" on the binary -- it's actually using the documented way to statically extract a version number string from a Linux kernel binary, even a compressed one. A lot of things, including Grub, depends on it. If they're doing something other than that, of course, then they deserve what they get.

Now, their problem is that they're making assumptions that are probably unwarranted about the contents of that string.

-hpa
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/