Hi Andrew, thanks for your suggestions for improving the documentation. I have done some work on it and committed the current version into SVN.
Could you have a look at <http://svn.hinterhof.net/viewcvs/loop-aes-source/trunk/debian/README.Debian?view=markup> and ideally give me feedback whether it addresses your points, and/or which parts could be further improved? On Sun, Jul 03, 2005 at 12:35:24AM -0700, Andrew Pimlott wrote: > I found a few things confusing when I decided to build the loop-aes > driver. First, the package description didn't mention that I would > need a kernel-source package, not just kernel-headers, so I had to go > back and install that. You could probably also add a Recommends: > kernel-source (or maybe Suggests:). I would rather not include this in the package description, because it is already quite long as is. Your suggestion to add a Recommends is sensible and I think expresses this requirement well, so I will likely do this for the next upload. > Second, I was surprised that I had to install the kernel-source > package, but I didn't have to actually rebuild the kernel. Perhaps > you could clarify that in the package description and/or > README.Debian: > > Although you must have a full kernel source tree to build the > loop-aes driver, it does not patch the kernel, so you don't need > to rebuild. The newly build module will load into your old > kernel. Using an unconfigured/uncompiled source tree will work most of the time, but is not actually safe or recommended. The loop-AES Makefile looks at a number of files in the source tree to determine build settings, and among them are Makefile and include/linux/autoconf.h which do not exist or do not contain correct settings in unconfigured trees. It is in fact strongly recommended to build the kernel one intends to use before using it to build loop-AES. I hope this requirement is now clearer in the new version of README.Debian. If not perhaps you see a possible better wording? > Third, the instructions for using make-kpkg to build loop-aes are a > bit incomplete. If you follow the instructions, when you run > make-kpkg, you will get hit with a zillion questions from make > oldconfig (or at least I did). Perhaps best would be to get the > .config that Debian uses, which can be copied from /boot. This step (copying /boot/config-$KVERS) and the observation from your other mail that --append-to-version is required would be useful to add. But - I decided to drop this entire section about building for official kernels using make-kpkg in favour of describing how one can use module-assistant to the same effect. Overall I hope the documentation is more usable in the new version. Suggestions how to clarify certain points, add more information or simply express things better than my half-broken english is capable of are of course always welcome :) cheers, Max -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
