How to build kernel backport on CentOS 7?

Question

I installed CentOS 7 on a Macbook Pro early 2015 with Broadcom BCM43602 wifi chip. I've tried all other methods by digging through the CentOS documentation about wifi setup. I finally came to realize that a potential solution is to compile backports for the brcmfmac kernel module.

Running kernel

Linux centos7.localdomain 3.10.0-327.13.1.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Thu Mar 31 16:04:38 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

What I did

• Downloaded and unzipped backport from https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/backports/stable/
• Read backport documentation

• Ran make defconfig-brcmfmac

• Ran make and was greeted with errors.

Log of commands and output below.

[admin@centos7 backports-4.0.1-1]$ make mrproper
  CLEAN   /home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/.tmp_versions
[admin@centos7 backports-4.0.1-1]$ make defconfigs-brcmfmac
Generating local configuration database from kernel ... done.
make[1]: *** No rule to make target `defconfigs-brcmfmac'.  Stop.
make: *** [defconfigs-brcmfmac] Error 2
[admin@centos7 backports-4.0.1-1]$ make defconfig-brcmfmac
cc -Wall -Wmissing-prototypes -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer   -c -o conf.o conf.c
cc -Wall -Wmissing-prototypes -Wstrict-prototypes -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer   -c -o zconf.tab.o zconf.tab.c
cc   conf.o zconf.tab.o   -o conf
boolean symbol HWMON tested for 'm'? test forced to 'n'
boolean symbol HWMON tested for 'm'? test forced to 'n'
#
# configuration written to .config
#
[admin@centos7 backports-4.0.1-1]$ make
make[5]: `conf' is up to date.
boolean symbol HWMON tested for 'm'? test forced to 'n'
boolean symbol HWMON tested for 'm'? test forced to 'n'
#
# configuration written to .config
#
Building backport-include/backport/autoconf.h ... done.
  CC [M]  /home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/compat/main.o
In file included from include/linux/rcupdate.h:43:0,
                 from /home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/backport-include/linux/rcupdate.h:3,
                 from include/linux/srcu.h:33,
                 from include/linux/notifier.h:15,
                 from include/linux/memory_hotplug.h:6,
                 from include/linux/mmzone.h:824,
                 from include/linux/gfp.h:5,
                 from include/linux/kmod.h:22,
                 from include/linux/module.h:13,
                 from /home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/backport-include/linux/module.h:3,
                 from /home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/compat/main.c:1:
/home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/backport-include/linux/completion.h:14:20: error: redefinition of ‘reinit_completion’
 static inline void reinit_completion(struct completion *x)
                    ^
In file included from /home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/backport-include/linux/completion.h:3:0,
                 from include/linux/rcupdate.h:43,
                 from /home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/backport-include/linux/rcupdate.h:3,
                 from include/linux/srcu.h:33,
                 from include/linux/notifier.h:15,
                 from include/linux/memory_hotplug.h:6,
                 from include/linux/mmzone.h:824,
                 from include/linux/gfp.h:5,
                 from include/linux/kmod.h:22,
                 from include/linux/module.h:13,
                 from /home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/backport-include/linux/module.h:3,
                 from /home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/compat/main.c:1:
include/linux/completion.h:86:20: note: previous definition of ‘reinit_completion’ was here
 static inline void reinit_completion(struct completion *x)
                    ^
make[6]: *** [/home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/compat/main.o] Error 1
make[5]: *** [/home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1/compat] Error 2
make[4]: *** [_module_/home/admin/Documents/backports-4.0.1-1] Error 2
make[3]: *** [modules] Error 2
make[2]: *** [modules] Error 2
make[1]: *** [modules] Error 2
make: *** [default] Error 2

What I am missing here?

Answer 1

4.0.1?

centos 7 is based on 3.10 kernels, except Red Hat applied plenty of custom patches and the codebase already diverged from upstream 3.10. There is a chance an upstream patch will work anyway due to luck and/or kabi guarantees.

But the real question is why are you trying to use centos 7 on a dekstop matchine. If you want to use a distro tied to red hat you can try fedora. Otherwise try ubuntu.