git - Don't add "+" to linux kernel version

Question

I am building linux kernel, if my kernel under git, then kernel version every time is:

Image Name:   Linux-2.6.39+

If I am not using git, then everything is OK without any plus at the end.

I know that this done by scripts/setlocalversion script:

if test "$CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO" = "y"; then
    # full scm version string
    res="$res$(scm_version)"
else
    # append a plus sign if the repository is not in a clean
    # annotated or signed tagged state (as git describe only
    # looks at signed or annotated tags - git tag -a/-s) and
    # LOCALVERSION= is not specified
    if test "${LOCALVERSION+set}" != "set"; then
        scm=$(scm_version --short)
            res="$res${scm:++}"
        fi
fi

So, it is possible without code changes say to build system that no need to add "+" at the end of version line?

Answer 1

The plus sign at the end of your version string is there as an indicator that the kernel was built from modified sources (that is, there were non-committed changes). This is also indicated by the comments in scripts/setlocalversion.

To avoid the '+' being appended despite having a dirty working directory, simply set LOCALVERSION explicityly when running make:

make LOCALVERSION=

You may also have to change the configuration option CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO to n in your kernel config (.config) before building:

sed -i "s|CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO=.*|CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO=n|" .config