From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic =?utf-8?Q?Court=C3=A8s?=) Subject: Re: why is linux-libre-headers behind linux-libre? Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2017 10:56:33 +0100 Message-ID: <8760ambeem.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87bmkn7awd.fsf@albion.it.manchester.ac.uk> <20171031193852.GB987@macbook41> <87fu9x2df8.fsf@albion.it.manchester.ac.uk> <878tfksp03.fsf@gnu.org> <87po8vhk3q.fsf@netris.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44542) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eC0cc-0002Qo-GU for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 07 Nov 2017 04:56:43 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eC0cb-0003B0-GZ for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 07 Nov 2017 04:56:42 -0500 In-Reply-To: <87po8vhk3q.fsf@netris.org> (Mark H. Weaver's message of "Mon, 06 Nov 2017 03:44:41 -0500") List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: "Guix-devel" To: Mark H Weaver Cc: guix-devel , Dave Love Mark H Weaver skribis: > Hi, > > ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Court=C3=A8s) writes: > >> Dave Love skribis: >> >>> Efraim Flashner writes: >>> >>>> On Tue, Oct 31, 2017 at 02:00:35PM +0100, Vincent Legoll wrote: >>>>> Hello, >>>>>=20 >>>>> On Tue, Oct 31, 2017 at 1:35 PM, Dave Love wrote: >>>>> > Why is linux-libre-headers a long way behind linux-libre (currently= at >>>>> > version 4.4.47, compared with 4.13.10 for linux-libre)? >>>>>=20 >>>>> I suspect this is due to massive rebuilding that would occur when >>>>> updating linux-libre-headers >> >> That and also because glibc targets (can target) older kernels, which is >> something we rely on. >> >>>> This is typically updated in the core-updates branch, but it hasn't be= en >>>> updated yet. Based on the LTS versions, we should upgrade it to the 4.9 >>>> branch. >>> >>> Thanks for the explanations. I checked that 4.9 would support the >>> Omnipath library, at least. >> >> The Omnipath library relies on Linux (not libc) headers, and a specific >> version thereof? >> >> I suppose we could also introduce a more recent version of >> =E2=80=98linux-libre-headers=E2=80=99 specifically for this purpose, wit= h the >> understanding that the resulting binaries rely on a specific kernel >> version. > > Are you sure about this? My impression was that binaries compiled with > newer linux-libre-headers can be run on older kernels. If you were > correct, then the binaries we've been building throughout 2017 could be > reliably run only on linux-libre-4.4 or newer. You=E2=80=99re right, but my guess was that if the Omnipath library requires specific kernel headers, then it may be using functionality (and syscalls) only implemented by newer kernels. I haven=E2=80=99t checked tho= ugh. Ludo=E2=80=99.