RE: Dependencies of linux-headers-<arch> packages

["Moessbauer, Felix" <felix.moessbauer@siemens.com>]

Hi Helmut,

> From: Helmut Grohne <helmut@subdivi.de>
> Sent: Friday, March 11, 2022 2:49 PM
> 
> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, Mar 10, 2022 at 02:13:34PM +0000, Moessbauer, Felix wrote:
> > Many thanks for the patch.
> > I just (manually) backported that to Debian bullseye, tested it for arm64 and it
> worked like a charm.
> 
> Can we please stop piling up workarounds and instead fix this once and for all?
> 
> I see us mirroring the "LTS problem" here: Everyone maintains their own stuff
> with local patches and it barely works. LTS now has a solution in the form of
> freexian where the effort is centralized and made available for the benefit of
> everyone.

In general I agree, but here the situation is a bit different:
The dependency to the host compiler (e.g. arm64) is too narrow.
In general, any gcc compiler in the correct version should do.

As discussed earlier the linux-headers -> compiler dependency is just a convenience dep.
I proposed to remove it or move it to the "recommends" section.
But the proposed solution might be better as it maintains backwards compatibility.

For users that just want to cross-compile a module, there is simply no reason why the have to install the compiler for the host architecture (e.g. arm64).
And this use-case is perfectly solved in the patch from Ben.

Felix

> 
> Helmut