[Nix-dev] Patching uname in stdenv?

[Eelco Dolstra]

Hi,

On 08/17/2011 05:03 AM, shea at shealevy.com wrote:

> What would people think of a patch that made stdenv's uname return the
> same value on every linux?

I assume you're referring to the kernel version returned by ‘uname -r’.

Since ‘uname’ is also used outside of builders, this is not a good idea — it 
would change the behaviour that users expect from it.

BTW, the kernel version does matter sometimes, for instance, APR (IIRC) at 
compile-time decides whether to use the accept4() system call based on the 
kernel version of the build system.  So if you try to run the resulting library 
on an older kernel, it doesn't work.  Arguably the kernel version should be part 
of the "system" value, but that would be too painful.

-- 
Eelco Dolstra | http://www.st.ewi.tudelft.nl/~dolstra/