On Tuesday 05 December 2006 02:23, Statux wrote: > The old way of doing things was to make the following two symlinks: > > /usr/include/linux -> /usr/src/linux/include/linux > /usr/include/asm -> /usr/src/linux/include/asm > > Then the second would be linked to the correct set of asm headers for > your architecture, etc, inside the linux kernel source tree.
that was years ago. And the linux-devs will kill you for that. > > Somewhere along the lines, the symlinking idea became deprecated in > favor of using a hard set of header files. Because the linux-kernel-headers are totally broken for userspace. Nothing, no app, no tool, no lib, should use them. They are constantly changing, and very, very bad. There is some work, to make them userspace usable. But it just started. > I forget why this came to be > but I agree that at some point, a newer kernel must render some portion > of an old set of headers outdated. no, it does not. Because they are seperated. Some distros even use 2.4 headers for userspace and get along well. > I think the linux-headers package is > intended to be kept as up to date as possible to avoid interface > changes/incompatibilities. Why it's not kept even and why the > redundancy? Good questions. Again, the linux-headers package is a cleaned up, modified 'for userspace only' version, while the kernel's headers are a messy pile of 'for kernel usage only'. Some 'linux headers' are in fact glibc headers. So calm down. The headers and the kernel are not related in any big way anymore. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
