re: Time to merge the pgoyette-compat branch (take two)

[matthew green <mrg%eterna.com.au@localhost>]

Martin Husemann writes:
> On Sat, Sep 08, 2018 at 02:19:41PM +1000, matthew green wrote:
> > Greg Troxel writes:
> > > I am just barely paying attention, but I think modules working well is
> > > important, and also having minimal code for what's needed.  So if mrg's
> > > main concerns have been addressed (aliases), I'm in favor (in a somewhat
> > > weak, not really clued in sort of way) of this.
> > 
> > indeed, i don't flat out object to the object/library change.
> > it's just wrong, and we should figure out how to fix it, but
> > i don't consider it a show stopper for the branch merge.
> 
> Seconded.
> 
> But I am not quite sure what you think is wrong about the .a method - if
> everything else is correct, it should not make a difference now - or am I
> missing something?

there are a couple of basic rules here:

- modular kernels should use kernel libraries as .o
- static kernels should use kernel libraries as .a

modular kernels can't know what they _might_ need so they should
include all objects (the .o), where as static kernels can use the
linker to elide unused objects (the .a).

it sounds like the branch ends up with duplicate symbols in some
cases, and using the .a avoids it, but the real fix would be to
remove the cause of the duplicate symbols in this case directly,
rather than by using the .a.

without looking closely i can't really judge what is up..


.mrg.