Re: [PATCH 2.6] 32bit module support

[Ralf Baechle <ralf@linux-mips.org>]

On Thu, Jan 29, 2004 at 03:18:33PM +0100, Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:

> > What still needs to be done is adding module supprt for 64-bit also - but
> > that's not functional in 2.4 either and I have no plans to implement
> > 64-bit modules in 2.4.
> 
>  AFAIK, what would be needed for 2.4 is an update to modutils, not the 
> kernel itself.  It can be done any time provided the interested party 
> writes appropriate code.

You're right, for 2.4 modutils would need to be updated since the entire
relocation is done in userspace.  The work that needs to be done on
userspace rsp. kernel utilities is similar though - 80% of the relocation
code in 2.6 were taken from the old modutils; the remaining 20% were
needed rewriting since the kernel environment for the relocation code is
different than in modutils.  In short, once 64-bit modules are working
for the one kernel version it's going to be easy to support the other also.

  Ralf