On 07/23/13 17:32, Paul Gortmaker wrote: > On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 7:10 PM, Rob Landley <rob@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> On 07/23/2013 05:57:15 PM, Aaro Koskinen wrote: >>> >>> Hi, >>> >>> On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 01:12:55AM -0400, Paul Gortmaker wrote: >>>> Looking at the bigger picture, the need for this file has simply >>>> passed. It was trying to detail required versions of userspace >>>> packages, in order to cater to hand-crafted systems. But now the >>>> majority of users get their userspace all at once from some kind >>>> of distro, and we are probably a lot more serious about avoiding >>>> breaking userspace than we were a dozen years ago. >> >> >> You're right, there's no such thing as "embedded linux", nobody creates >> their own hand-crafted systems, or assembles cross-compiling environments to >> target hardware other than x86. That's crazy talk. > > Aside from the obvious sarcasm, what are you trying to say here? The above > seems like a classic strawman argument to me, since _none_ of the above are > things that I have said or implied. And if pressed, I can give many counter > examples to drive that point home. Do I really need to? > >> >>> Is there any file describing the needed tools (and minimum versions) to >>> _build_ the kernel? I agree that trying to describe such for the run-time >>> userspace does not belong to the kernel tree, but the required/supported >>> versions of build tools should be still maybe documented... >> >> >> Documentation/changes _is_ the file that describes the kernel's build-time >> prerequisites. It hasn't changed in a while because we've been maintaining >> backwards compatability, especially for several non-x86 targets where it's >> fiddly to get newer toolchain versions. > > See the mail from hpa --- what may be the "latest" for some less common > arch may also be simply too old for another arch. Hence this kind of stuff > needs to be in an arch specific file, let alone not in a mis-named "Changes" > file. > >> >> (Personally I use the last GPLv2 releases of each package, so gcc 4.2.1, >> binutils 2.17, make 3.81, and busybox.) > > And this works on every arch that linux supports? > >> >> I agree squashfs and such aren't build time prerequisites. It might make >> more sense to move some of these to menuconfig text for the appropriate >> option. But that's not the same as not documenting it at all, and "this >> document has been true for a long time and remains true, therefore we must >> discard it" strikes me as a really weird document retention criteria. > > Again, a strawman. You suggest I said the above with your "this document..." > quote, but I never said anything like that, and it totally mis-represents why I > suggested we should remove it. > > Lets move forward from here and not descend into arguing over details. > > To that end, if we create a required-packages.txt that covers the generic > stuff like "make" version, and then the arch specific stuff (in arch specific > files) for key stuff like gcc version, and gas version, etc, would you not > see that as an improvement over what is currently in the mis-named and > largely abandoned Changes file? Yes, a list of required packages with their locations (URLs) and other metadata would be both Good and Sufficient IMO. Thanks. -- ~Randy -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-doc" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
