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I'm trying to write a basic kernel module for my Raspberry Pi V4 Model B.

I tried to follow the steps at puddleofcode.com and How compile a loadable kernel module without recompiling kernel.

obj-m := pix_mod.o

all:
    make -C /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build M=$(PWD) modules

clean:
    make -C /lib/modules/$(shell uname -r)/build M=$(PWD) clean

However, regardless of which version of the Makefile I'm using, I'm always getting this error:

Makefile:4: *** missing separator.  Stop.

I'm not a make user, so I have no idea what this error message means.

The only thing I'm suspecting is that the error is somewhere on line 4.

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13
  • what research have you done? ... duckduckgo.com/?q=makefile+missing+separator&ia=qa
    – jsotola
    Oct 15, 2022 at 17:51
  • your question does not belong here ... it is a Linux question, not a Raspberry Pi specific question
    – jsotola
    Oct 15, 2022 at 17:52
  • @jsotola Actually, it belongs here. Because I'm trying to get a kernel module working for the raspberry pi. It's not a Linux question.
    – Marco
    Oct 15, 2022 at 20:21
  • And @jsotola I'm not going to ''make'' research on an error message that is so obscure like this one Makefile:4: *** missing separator. Stop.. The issue was that the indentation was wrong (spaces instead of tabs).
    – Marco
    Oct 15, 2022 at 20:26
  • The error message is unhelpful and obscure. I was hoping someone with actual knowledge about make could answer my question.
    – Marco
    Oct 15, 2022 at 20:27

1 Answer 1

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Turned out make isn't happy with 4 spaces as indentation (duh, I just copied the Makefile from these sites).

Anyway, replacing the 4 spaces with 1 tab fixed the issue.

(I can't post the correct Makefile syntax here, because it will get replaced with spaces)

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