Linux Kernel: Breaking Up the Device ID Header Monolith
Uwe Kleine-König's mod_devicetable.h split lands, breaking one massively over-included header into per-subsystem pieces to cut kernel build times, while a smaller ATA fixes batch tightens error handling and device quirks in libata.
Duration: PT2M25S
Episode overview
This episode is a short developer briefing from Linux Kernel.
It explains recent repository work in plain language.
- Show: Linux Kernel
- Published: 2026-07-03T13:52:58Z
- Audio duration: PT2M25S
Transcript excerpt
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Good day, and welcome to the Linux Kernel briefing for July 3rd, 2026.
Today's headline is a maintainability win years in the making: the mod_devicetable header split, merged by Linus Torvalds in commit d2c9a99.
Here's the problem it solves. The header mod devicetable dot h was transitively pulled into nearly every driver in a full kernel build - over seventeen thousand object files, by Uwe Kleine-König's own count. That means touching one obscure device ID struct could trigger a massive rebuild across unrelated subsystems.…
That split then rippled outward. Two follow-up commits, ecca1d6 and 995832b, rewired headers and C files across the tree to include only what they actually use. And because tightening these includes breaks hidden dependencies, we got a string of small, targeted fixes: parisc needed an explicit compiler dot h include…
Separately, Damien Le Moal pulled a batch of ATA fixes. Notable ones: a new no-link-power-management quirk for a Phison SSD, stricter validation of device positioning range reports to reject bad data, and probe error-handling fixes in the pata_pxa and sata_gemini drivers.
What to remember: if your driver stops building after this merge, check whether…
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