It seems I always have to search for the kernel taint descriptions. So for reference they’re located in kernel/panic.c of the kernel source.
The descriptions are as follows:
/** * print_tainted - return a string to represent the kernel taint state. * * 'P' - Proprietary module has been loaded. * 'F' - Module has been forcibly loaded. * 'S' - SMP with CPUs not designed for SMP. * 'R' - User forced a module unload. * 'M' - System experienced a machine check exception. * 'B' - System has hit bad_page. * 'U' - Userspace-defined naughtiness. * 'D' - Kernel has oopsed before * 'A' - ACPI table overridden. * 'W' - Taint on warning. * 'C' - modules from drivers/staging are loaded. * 'I' - Working around severe firmware bug. * 'O' - Out-of-tree module has been loaded. * * The string is overwritten by the next call to print_tainted(). */
I run into W regularly but as I don’t tend to use binary drivers, third party firmwares, force module loads or use custom ACPI tables (I wonder if a T for custom/out of tree Device Tree is needed?) I don’t tend to see many of the others. I do use staging drivers though. The other one I see quite regularly that isn’t documented in the above comment is G which means “GPL module loaded” ie basically the opposite to P “Proprietary”.
Peter Robinson: Kernel taint state descriptions http://t.co/MJ7Zh19NsR
Kernel taint state descriptions: It seems I always have to search for the kernel taint descriptions. S… http://t.co/6wW95JioVN #fedora
Peter Robinson: Kernel taint state descriptions: It seems I always have to search for the kernel tai… http://t.co/wROEk4ClNO #LinuxNov