[oe] [meta-networking][RFC PATCH 0/1] Failed to compile networkmanager with musl

[Adrian Bunk]

On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 11:53:27AM -0700, Khem Raj wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 28, 2019 at 11:06 AM Adrian Bunk <bunk at stusta.de> wrote:
> >
> > What about marking networkmanager as incompatible with musl instead of
> > maintaining an ever-growing mess?
> >
> 
> if the fix is specifically done for musl alone then I would agree, but
> in many cases, the fixes
> have been cleaning up assumptions in kernel UAPI headers on glibc
> provided headers
> which is a good thing, and it does take some time for kernel header
> changes to flow upstream
> but eventually, they do. e.g. see [1]

This is not a cleanup, this is a workaround for a misfeature of musl.

The kernel userspace headers are the userspace ABI of the kernel for 
usage by all C libraries provided in one place, they are not tied to
any specific C library.

musl upstream does not even try to use the kernel userspace headers.

The kernel userspace headers used to be a mess, but after more than 10 
years of cleanup there is no excuse for musl to insist on providing own 
definitions of what is already provided by the kernel headers.

> > Networkmanager uses parts of systemd as a library and also has own
> > glibc-only usages.
> >
> > Both systemd and networkmanager are fundamentally Linux-only,
> > and for systemd it is known that upstream has made the design
> > decision to not compromise their software for rare usecases
> > with C libraries other than glibc.
> >
> > AFAIK OE is the only distribution trying to build either of these
> > with musl, other musl-using distributions are using less heavyweight
> > solutions.
> 
> We should enable as much as possible we can and not go overboard in
> supporting everything
> except for core packages where it might be ok to put a bit of effort
> and upstream the changes
> network manager is quite useful in base images eg. xfce images etc
>...

When you are using networkmanager and xfce in your image,
what is the point of using musl instead of glibc?

Networkmanager alone has twice the size of glibc.

There is a benefit of a small C library when your flash space is 
single-digit megabytes, but maintaining plenty of not upstreamable 
OE-only patches for using networkmanager on musl without a sane
usecase is a waste of effort.

cu
Adrian

-- 

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       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
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