Re: [kbuild-devel] Re: CML2 design philosophy heads-up

[Steven Cole]

On Friday 18 May 2001 09:19, Jes Sorensen wrote:
> Replacing the code does not require changing the style of the config
> files. Thats a major problem with CML2, you introduce a new 'let me do
> everything for you' tool that relies on a programming language that is
> not being shipped by any major vendor nor does it look like they are
> planning to do it anytime soon. And even if they start doing so, this

Actually, Linux-Mandrake 8.0 ships with Python 2.0, but your next
point is a very good one:

> is a totally unreasonable requirement, you *must* to make it possible
> to compile kernels on older distributions without requiring people to
> update half of their system. On some architectures, the majority of
> the users are still on glibc 2.0 and other old versions of
> tools. Telling them to install an updated gcc for kernel compilation
> is a necessary evil, which can easily be done without disturbing the
> rest of the system. Updating the system's python installation is not a
> reasonable request. Nobody disagrees that the Makefiles needs a
> redesign, however that doesn't mean everything else has to be
> redisigned in a totally incompatible manner.

I didn't have trouble installing python 2.0 before LM 8.0 did that for me,
but I was probably just lucky.  I've seen some reports by other people who
did have difficulty upgrading python.  If the python installation difficulties
are a real obstacle, perhaps that is what needs to be fixed.

Steven