Re: [gentoo-dev] [PATCH v2 1/4] kernel-install.eclass: Install logic for dist-kernels

[Michał Górny]

On Sun, 2020-01-05 at 07:30 +0000, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 05, 2020 at 07:27:38AM +0100, Michał Górny wrote:
> > Introduce a new eclass that contains common logic needed to test
> > and install distribution kernels.  This is the eclass common both
> > to kernels built from source and installed from binary packages.
> I'm 100% in favour of the concept here, but I have some implementation
> concerns.
>
> For the (public) record, Infra has been wrapping genkernel to build
> binary kernel + initramfs for internal usage for 5 years now.
>
> Conceptually, can you clarify why you are depending on dracut here,
> rather than using genkernel's initramfs mode?

For a start, because dracut is not bundling all its dependencies.  It's
also tested outside Gentoo, so it has much wider testing than genkernel,
and doesn't suffer from intermediate deaths, -next forks and total
confusion over which version should be used.

> I'm not sure you're going to get correct build output in cases like
> x86_64 -> x86 cross-compiles.

Cross-compile support is untested, and provided merely where it was
clear how to do it.  I'm happy to fix it later, when someone figures it
out.

> Why not call genkernel from the ebuild instead of re-inventing the
> wheel to compile the kernel yourself.

Have you read the logic and found a way to achieve all that from
genkernel, without 1) losing advantages of my approach, 2) adding a huge
dependency to replace 5 lines of code?

-- 
Best regards,
Michał Górny