[elrepo-devel] status on kmod-alsa-1.0.21 ?

[Phil Perry]

David Ranch wrote:
> Hello Phil,
> 
> The kernel I'm running requires that I disable kABI checking as I need
> to enable AX25 support.  I'm assuming that the elrepo code REQUIRES kABI
> support.  

Having consulted with Alan, he assures me that disabling kABI checking 
when building a custom kernel simply allows the custom kernel build to 
complete rather than aborting with a kABI breakage message should there 
be a discrepancy between the ABI of the new custom kernel and Red Hat's 
kABI whitelist. So no, elrepo packages shouldn't require the kernel to 
have been built with kABI checks enabled, per se. But...

However, if customisation of the kernel has removed ksyms() required by 
one of our packages, then those packages will fail to install.

> I was able to compile the kmod-alsa-1.0.20 package but when I
> tried to install it, I received various missing ksym errors.  I assume
> that's because of disabling kABI .
> 

It is possible that the missing ksyms error is due to kernel 
customisation as outlined above, however it may also be due to alsa 
requiring certain symbols that are not currently defined on Red Hat's 
kABI whitelist. For example, see here:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=520891

and you'll notice that the current kmod-alsa is affected by 5 missing 
symbols. We currently work around this by hacking the build environment 
to allow a kmod to be built for and used with a kernel-series that does 
not have a particular ksym defined within its ABI but the ksym in 
question is required by the kmod package.


> Finally, I agree with you about trying a alternative kernels.  I'm
> actually booting up a few different live cds:
> 
> Fedora
> - 11 - alsa 1.0.20 - doesn't see the MIC
> - 12 - alsa 1.0.21 - doesn't see the MIC
> 

That doesn't look promising if it's not working with alsa-1.0.21 in F12.