Re: Dates in boot loaders on !x86

[Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost>]

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 01:39:31AM -0500, der Mouse wrote:
> >> True.  What I use the timestamp for (when I use it at all, that is)
> >> is answering "is the bootloader (or whatever) I'm getting the one I
> >> just built and think I installed, or did something go wrong?".  The
> >> difference between ten minutes old and two weeks old is important;
> >> the difference between two weeks old and six months old is not.
> > BTW, the kernel version is still included, so at least on -current
> > you can normally detect the case of "pretty recent" and "a few month
> > old" from that as well.
> 
> Except that tells me whether the kernel being booted is recent, not
> whether the bootloader doing the booting is.

No. It is the version in src/sys/sys/param.h. It doesn't have any
relation to the kernel you are running or booting. The point is that it
is a non-changing, human readable identifier of the source tree that
hopefully changes often enough to be able to tell two versions apart.

> However, based on the discussion, it sounds as though this is not an
> issue: it appears the datestamps are still there unless turned off (as
> anyone wanting bit-for-bit-repeatable builds presumably will), meaning
> the issue I raised simply does not exist.

That depends. Some platforms dropped them completely. It is much simpler
to consistently drop it.

Joerg