Re: Improvements in search of kernel modules directory

Hi Lucas,

Lucas De Marchi [off-list ref] writes:

An environment variable for the library IMO is not a good option. If
you take a look on how we separate the responsibility of each
component you will see that we parse environment vars on the tools
(e.g. modprobe) not on the library.

Can you explain a bit why an environment variable is not OK here? The
code path using get_kernel_release is shared by many tools, and as
things currently stand there is already a global setting fixed in this
file. If we were to move this out to the tools, we would have to
duplicate this code in several places and any external tools linked
against kmod (e.g. systemd) will need to be updated as well. By default
users of this interface will not know that they need to check the env
var, because as things stand the code will just work, so it's likely
that new uses, in and out of kmod, will start out not respecting
MODULE_DIR and only after someone notices things aren't working for a
case relying on it will they be changed.

Thanks,
Shea