Mauro, read the first message I linked too:
http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/4/3/209 or http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/511684
Randy had this exact same problem with the md driver and a different ip
checksum function.
ip_compute_csum() _isn't_ defined under NET. It's part of the kernel's
arch specific library. So it should be available for all modules to use as
part of the kernel core. Except due to a flaw in the build system, symbols
that are part of a library can't be used by modules unless there is at
least one non-module user. There would be the same problem with strcat()
or tons of other functions, if one were able to compile all users of these
functions are modules.
I wonder if the build system could be modified to take every object that's
part of lib-y an turn it into a .ko file?
The process would be something like this:
build lib-y objects like they are and make lib.a
filter out of lib-y all objects that don't export symbols. Since the
objects are already compiled, this shouldn't be hard.
obj-m += lib-y
Now all the lib files will be modules, and if any module needs a symbol
from one and it's not in the kernel, modprobe will load it. Minimum bloat,
since the library code isn't loaded into the kernel until something is in
the kernel that needs it. And we don't need to create kconfig symbols for
library functions and remember to select them. Let depmod keep track of
what library functions a module needs.
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