No more kernel-source(code) ??? (was: rawhide report: 20040623 changes)

[Jeremy Katz]

On Thu, 2004-06-24 at 02:25 +0200, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
> > While I'm far from an expert, the headers needed to build 3rd party
> > modules are now packaged with the kernel proper (that's one reason
> > it's taking so long to install a new kernel nowadays).
> 
> Looks to me like the main reason it's taking so long is because kernel
> post scripts run "hardlink" which is not documented and has no help
> output.  But judging by the name, the arguments it takes, and where it's
> run, I'd bet good money on conjecturing that it is a script that given a
> path or set of paths figures out all the files are the same, then
> hardlinks one to the other, thus saving space.

Correct

> Personally I don't think the benefit of saving space outweighs the
> tremendous amount of time this takes, and I can't imagine it having very
> much benefit if the kernel version and release of the files being
> evualuated aren't exactly the same.  Just my idea though.

Actually, there's quite a bit of savings.  I don't remember the numbers,
but they were fairly absurdly high.  The run of hardlink could actually
be sped up if it were modified to only do the md5 checks if the file's
basename is the same.  I just haven't had the 'round 'tuits to look into
making the change myself.

Jeremy