[LinuxPPS] convergence patch

[Hal V. Engel]

On Thursday 07 May 2009 09:57:22 am Magnus Danielson wrote:
> Udo van den Heuvel skrev:
> > Bernhard Schiffner wrote:
> >> Simple changes take longer.
> >> I asked the convergence behavior too and didn't get a real response.
> >> (here and lkml)
> >
> > So we can saffly apply this patch as long as it's not in the main kernel?
> >
> >> No idea wat's on with Rodolfo. :-(
> >
> > Maybe he can explain?
> >
> > UDO
> >
> > PS: What about the sys/timex.h (glibc) changes needed for nano? Does
> > anybody know if they 'landed' with the maintainer?
>
> I was just recalling this issue too. On the other hand one should maybe
> ask the question if it is reasnoble that the linux-kernel and glibc
> should require coordination like that. Wouldn't it be a better solution
> to adjust the kernel timex.h such that glibc timex.h can wrap it with a
> suitable #define such that copy-n-paste issues can be avoided?
> This way would the actual definitions be in the linux kernel tree and
> only conveyed thru to user-space programmers.
> The glibc would then only need to supply the call wrappers and they
> would require updates more rarely.
>
> Cheers,
> Magnus

I opened a bug report with the glibc maintainers about the middle of last 
year.  So they are aware of this but seem unable to figure out how to deal 
with the issue.  The bug is still open so at least they have not decided that 
it is invalid and I know that the maintainer has at least looked at in some 
detail.  I do agree with Magnus that the current way this is setup is probably 
a design flaw and this is probably why it is taking so long to resolve.  In 
addition any fix has the potential to cause issues in existing user land 
applications so they are being very careful about making any changes (after 
this code has not be changed since kernel version 2.2).  

The other thing is that as far as I can determine the only user land app that 
uses this API is ntp so perhaps the best solution is to modify the ntp build 
so that it no longer uses glibc and instead builds against the kernel 
directly.

Hal