Bug 133936 – svgalib_helper won't load with all_devices error

• Status: RESOLVED FIXED
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Walter Meinl 2006-05-21 04:00:47 UTC]

Since I've upgraded to udev-0.90 gentoo-sources-2.6.16-r7 the svgalib_helper module refuses to load after successful compilation.

output of modprobe:

WARNING: /etc/modprobe.conf line 100: ignoring bad line starting with 'probeall'
FATAL: Error inserting svgalib_helper (/lib/modules/2.6.16-gentoo-r7/misc/svgalib_helper.ko): Invalid argument

output of dmseg:
svgalib_helper: falsely claims to have parameter all_devices

There's also no /dev/svga being created

[Comment 1 Walter Meinl 2006-05-21 04:01:28 UTC]

Created attachment 87190 [details]
emerge --info

[Comment 2 Pablo De Nápoli 2006-05-30 08:26:54 UTC]

I'm having the same trouble, but I'm not sure if it is related
to udev (in fact, I'm using udev-087)

modprobe svgalib_helper

gives the message

FATAL: Error inserting svgalib_helper (/lib/modules/2.6.16.18/misc/svgalib_helper.ko): Invalid argument

I'm using linux-2.6.16.18 (with 2.6.16 headers) on a Gentoo x86 host.
module-init-tools-3.2.2 (I've tested it also with 3.2.1)
glibc 3.2.1 gcc-4.1.1 binutils-2.16.1

and dmesg muestra el mensaje

svgalib_helper: falsely claims to have parameter all_devices

[Comment 3 Pablo De Nápoli 2006-05-30 08:33:25 UTC]

In fact, I've also tried udev-079-r1 (the version that I was using
before the upgrade), and it didn't work either.
In my opinion, this issue is related to the upgrade of binutils.
Which version of binutils are you using?

[Comment 4 Walter Meinl 2006-05-30 12:08:20 UTC]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Which version of binutils are you using?
> 

binutils-2.16.1-r2 marked x86 stable

[Comment 5 Pablo De Nápoli 2006-06-03 12:27:28 UTC]

I've suceded to load svgalib_helper into the 2.6.16.18 kernel
by comenting out the lines declaring the all_devices parameter
in /kernel/svgalib_helper/main.c and building the module from
the source:

MODULE_PARAM(all_devices,"i")
MODULE_PARAM_DESC(all_devices,....)

Of course, this is just a temporary work around if you don't really
need the all_devices parameter.

a mistake in my previous report: I'm using glibc-2.4
and svgalib-1.9.24

[Comment 6 Pablo De Nápoli 2006-06-03 13:10:16 UTC]

I've succeded in fixing this bug!

The solution is very simple: remove the static keyword in the line

static int all_devices=0;

in kernel/svgalib_helper/main.c

(this causes the symbol not to be exported by the linker)

I'm submitting a patch for this issue. Since don't have write access, please someone add this patch to portage.

[Comment 7 Pablo De Nápoli 2006-06-03 13:12:43 UTC]

Created attachment 88297 [details, diff]
patch for making all_devices parameter non static

file name: all_devices_non_static.patch

[Comment 8 Pablo De Nápoli 2006-06-03 13:13:28 UTC]

Created attachment 88298 [details]
svgalib-1.9.24.ebuild with this patch added

[Comment 9 SpanKY 2006-06-04 02:48:40 UTC]

fix looks good to me ... could you e-mail this to the upstream author please ?

you can find his contact info at the bottom of:
http://www.arava.co.il/matan/svgalib/

[Comment 10 Jakub Moc (RETIRED) 2006-07-19 23:08:43 UTC]

*** Bug 141090 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***