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

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Message-Id: <1165859874.27217.382.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org>
Date:	Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:57:53 +0100
From:	Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...radead.org>
To:	Olaf Hering <olaf@...fle.de>
Cc:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...l.org>,
	Andy Whitcroft <apw@...dowen.org>,
	Herbert Poetzl <herbert@...hfloor.at>, Andi Kleen <ak@...e.de>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...l.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Steve Fox <drfickle@...ibm.com>
Subject: Re: 2.6.19-git13: uts banner changes break SLES9 (at least)

On Mon, 2006-12-11 at 18:50 +0100, Olaf Hering wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 11, Linus Torvalds wrote: 
> > What crud. I'm even slightly inclined to just let SLES9 be broken, just to 
> > let people know how unacceptable it is to look for strings in kernel 
> > binaries. But sadly, I don't think the poor users should be penalized for 
> > some idiotic SLES developers bad taste.
> 
> SLES7 or SLES11 is not any different than SLES9 in that respect.
> Suppose I send you some random vmlinux binary. How do you (you as in linus.sh)
> know what 'uname -r' is inside this binary?
> There are surely many many ways to pass that info. Having a string like
> 'Linux version 2.6.19-g9202f325-dirty' somewhere in the binary is the
> most reliable one. Dont you agree?

it's for sure the most ugly one. I could see the use of having modinfo
work on the vmlinux, and have the vmlinux have a VERMAGIC as well. It's
only a simple elf section after all, and a heck of a lot more defined
and standard...



-- 
if you want to mail me at work (you don't), use arjan (at) linux.intel.com
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