Linux: Kernel Build Errors and Warnings

Jesper Juhl summarized a recent experiment of compiling the latest Linux kernel 100 times with various configurations, resulting in 82 failed builds and thousands of warnings. Most of the builds utilizedmake randconfig which generates a random .config, and further inspection revealed that a significant percentage of these builds failed due to known configuration issues. Regarding warnings, Adrian Bunk pointed out that for most normal configurations things are much better, "not that our current situation [is] perfect, but the number of warnings in .config's people usually use isn't that bad."

Jesper acknowledged that things aren't as bad as they first look, but went on to explain that he's trying to motivate more people into helping track down warnings and build errors, "there's a lot of focus on implementing new features - and that's great - but there's little emphasis on fixing the problems we have and already know about - I'd like to see that change, and my post was mainly an attempt at making that happen :)" Adrian agreed that this is a good goal, then pointed to thekernel bug tracker noting that most build errors are known, "and in these cases, the bugs in unmaintained areas of the kernel like APM or the floppy driver are the worst ones."