[syslinux] syslinux build fails with 2.6 linux headers

H. Peter Anvin hpa at zytor.com
Thu Jan 13 23:02:07 PST 2005


H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>>>
>>> I tried defining __KERNEL__ (a bad idea, I know) which eliminated 
>>> some of
>>> the errors. This seemed to leave another incomplete definition that
>>> required inclusion of an arch dependent header. And yes, I would 
>>> consider
>>> this to be a kernel bug, but realistically it needs to be fixed in
>>> syslinux (and the kernel where necessary). The world is not going to 
>>> stay
>>> with 2.4 just for the sake of syslinux. I would have hoped that the 
>>> kernel
>>> maintainers would have made a greater effort to maintain compatibility
>>> since syslinux is a required utility for building floppy images in 
>>> 2.6 but
>>> this does not seem to be the case :-(
>>>
>> Hmmm.  Why is syslinux required to build a 2.6 boot floppy?
>> I realize that the kernel image is no longer bootable on x86
>> directly, but isn't it still possible to build a floppy
>> with a filsys and use lilo or grub to load a 2.6.x kernel from
>> the same filesystem?
>>
> Sure, but "make zdisk" or whatever it's called uses syslinux.
> 

Anyway, the rant is off base.  Linus & co have decided to deprecate the 
use of headers straight out of the kernel (unwisely, in my opinion) and 
refer people to linux-libc-headers.  This is hopefully an initial step 
toward factoring out the kernel ABIs, but it's a bit of putting the cart 
before the horse.

Anyway, 3.07 contains a private copy of this header to just deal with 
it.  Won't help if they break the ioctl-specifying headers, though.

	-hpa




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