I would really like som help to solve this puzzle:

I'm trying to compile a driver as a loadable module, for the debian woody
distribution which uses kernel 2.2.20.
My platform is a Motorola VME16x with Motorola 68k processor.

Installing the woody distribution caused no problems.

Next I installed the kernel source package "kernel-source-2.2.20", the
kernel patch "kernel-patch-2.2.20-m68k"
Unpacked the stuff. Patched the kernel, transferred the config. Configured
the kernel "make menuconfig",   compiled the modules and kernel (make dep,
make modules, make bzImage)  ... not that I needed doing that, but it shows
that the sources have some integrity :-)

... all went well..

Now I'm trying to my  loadable module "chardev.c" which is just a skeleton
character driver.  I compile from my development path
"/usr/develop/chardev".

gcc -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -O -DMODULE -D__KERNEL__ -fomit-frame-pointer
-I/usr/src/kernel-source-2.2.20/include -c chardev.c
In file included from
/usr/src/kernel-source-2.2.20/include/linux/sched.h:505,
                 from /usr/src/kernel-source-2.2.20/include/linux/mm.h:4,
                 from /usr/src/kernel-source-2.2.20/include/linux/slab.h:14,
                 from
/usr/src/kernel-source-2.2.20/include/linux/malloc.h:4,
                 from chardev.c:31:
/usr/src/kernel-source-2.2.20/include/asm/current.h:4: global register
variable follows a function definition

On the net I've found other cases with this error. They were suggested to
use other CFLAGS.  I've tried those - and also the flags used when I issue
the make modules... no luck!.

The source which I sucessfully can compile and install on my RedHat 7.2 i386
installation is not the cause of the problem.
If I patch the current.h file in the kernel source, removing the register
declaration, the module compiles successfully. It can also be installed
and will do most things with no problems. Access to hardware, ioctl, read,
write and all works perfectly.

BUT, when I try to use the current pointer to access the task structure of
my task I get a segmentation failure. (I do this indirectly by calling
sleep_on_interrupible() )
It turns out that the current pointer is NULL. ... just removing  "register"
in "current.h" doesn't solve the problem.

Can anybody please help..

 / Bo

-----------------------------
My makefile:

INCL=-I/usr/src/kernel-source-2.2.20/include
CFLAGS= -D__KERNEL__ -DMODULE -I/usr/src/kernel-source-2.2.20/include -Wall
-Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer  -pipe -fno-strength-reduce -ff
ixed-a2

chardev.o: chardev.c /usr/include/linux/version.h
 $(CC) $(CFLAGS) $(INCL) -c chardev.c

.. I  didn't include the source - I can't compile any modules..