On Fri, Nov 09, 2001 at 11:52:00AM -0700, Stuart Macdonald wrote: > I further researched the issue and found that there was no 2.4.7-10 > published at kernel.org. Yup. Kernel.org is only for official kernels, plus whoever merits his or her own directory (such as people/alan, etc). The 2.4.7-10 is a RedHat kernel, in much the same was 2.4.7-ac1 is an Alan Cox kernel. The relationship between version numbers doesn't have to be strong. (There can actually be practically no relationship at all in the extreme case, but I don't know anyone silly enough to do this. :) > Is this a common practice of companies like Red Hat...? I would think > that if they built a 2.4.7-10 kernel that it would at least be > function-level compatable with the approved 2.4.7 kernel found at > kernel.org and certainly not take out kernel functions. This is common practice. It is rumored that the RedHat kernels mostly track the -ac kernels (which would make sense, since they employ him to do mostly kernel work :) in many cases, but are also free to add their own patches (in their src.rpm). As a result, they can differ wildly from a plain 2.4.7 kernel -- as you found out. My C is a little sketchy -- I don't know if #ifdef can figure out C symbols or not .. but it might be your only option to write modules that use the replaced symbol and its replacement, taking vendor kernels into account. To see the full extent of what RedHat has replaced, download their kernel src.rpm, unpack it, and edit the spec file. I imagine all vendor kernels differ from the stock kernels in some fashion. (Probably tracking -ac for stability, adding XFS or ext3 or something else similar, etc..) Good luck. -- The Bill of Rights: 7 out of 10 rights haven't been sold yet! Contact your congressman for details how *you* can buy one today! -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ IRC Channel: irc.openprojects.net / #kernelnewbies Web Page: http://www.kernelnewbies.org/
