[Pkg-lirc-maint] Bug#436166: Bug#436166: Bug#436166: Progress notes

[Stefan Lippers-Hollmann]

block 436166 by 471383
severity 436166 normal
thanks

On Freitag, 28. März 2008, Andrew Moise wrote:
>   Hey all.
>   I can only offer my opinion, but I can't imagine why this bug isn't
> reassigned to the kernel -- the only sensible solution, if a

If you look at the history of this bug, it had be reassigned to linux-2.6 
in august 2007 (and re- reassigned to lirc ~2 weeks later after talking 
to linux-2.6 maintainers).

That said, from a kernel maintainer's point of view I wouldn't even 
consider this, as lirc_gpio is using unexported headers it explicitly has 
no business messing with. There are two ways to fix this, redesigning 
lirc_gpio properly not to require access to these headers or getting lirc 
mainline, which actually has been started by RedHat/ Fedora (although 
excluding lirc_gpio and far from being finished).

> Debian-packaged kernel module is building against a kernel header, is
> for that header to be included in the linux-headers-foo packages
> (regardless of its "private" status upstream).  Have the kernel
> maintainers weighed in on this at all?
>   Thanks.

In the end this bug is totally unimportant as long as #471383 remains 
unfixed, which prevents lirc_gpio from compiling at all with recent 
kernels (2.6.23, 2.6.24).

As is, two of sixteen lirc kernel modules have to be considered broken:
- lirc_gpio [1] as it doesn't compile against kernel 2.6.23 and 2.6.24 at 
  all, due to extensive API changes in bttv (unfixed upstream, the only 
  suggestion is to revert the API change in the kernel, which is not an 
  option)
- lirc_parallel as it does not work with SMP kernels at all (unfixed 
  upstream)

In front of these fundamental issues with lirc_gpio, not being able to 
build against the kernel headers seems to be a mere inconvenience which 
can be alleviated by proper documentation about the issue (I have tried to
start this in /usr/share/doc/lirc-modules-source/README.Debian - 
suggestions and clarification welcome), I'm therefore downgrading the 
severity of this bug to "normal" (it simply wonn't change anything as long 
as #471383 isn't fixed).

What can be done to fix these issues, in my personal opinion the first 
step is overhauling the debconf defaults for lirc-modules-source (no string
changes) to preselect only working modules (~= everything but lirc_gpio
and lirc_parallel) on default, followed by the decision if lirc_gpio can be
ported to the new kernel bttv API (and without using unexported headers) 
or the more difficult one if it has to be dropped...

Patches or comments are of course always welcome.

Regards
	Stefan Lippers-Hollmann

[1]	http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=1821205&group_id=5444&atid=105444
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