Re: difficulty recompiling RHEL 4.2 kernel


"Dushan Mitrovich" <anti@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:occhE5aAHA1X092yn@xxxxxxxxxxxx
"ne..." <akabi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Try this instead;

1) cp /boot/config-[whatever] .config
# OR cp configs/config-[whatever] .config
2) make oldconfig
3) make menuconfig
4) make rpm

You need to copy the /boot/config-[whatever] so that you start of with a
working configuration. This assumes that /boot/config-[whatever] is the
configuration of an aktual working kernel. make oldconfig then confi-
gures your to be compiled kernel using the old configuration. This
drops all the options that were in the olde kernel but not in the new
kernel. It also gives the ability to configure new options. make
menuconfig gives you ability to further configure your kernel with a
nicer looking interface.

Thanks for describing what the different steps are supposed to do. But
one sentence has me perplexed:

"This drops all the options that were in the olde kernel but not in the
new kernel."

If I understood the sequence correctly, the command 'make oldconfig' con-
figures an as-yet-uncompiled kernel to the old, existing configuration,
including all the original options. Only when I do 'make menuconfig' do
I get a chance to drop old, unwanted options and add new ones. Is my
picture wrong?

It's very close. The extra source of confusion is that lots of folks go and
get brand new kernels and use the .config from their existing, older source
tree. This can cause format changes in the .config file, and old modules
that have been discarded will wind up deleted from the rebuild .config file,
and new modules that may never have existed before will be listed, if not
disabled by default or by other settings, in the new .config file.

It's a handy way to get a starting place for what drivers your current
kernel has available and to avoid accidentally leaving out something vital,
like network drivers or SCSI controller drivers that you need to actually
boot with.


.

Relevant Pages