[Novalug] Kernel Compiles

jecottrell3@comcast.net jecottrell3@comcast.net
Mon Apr 12 16:45:28 EDT 2010


Yeah, there's quite a few (hundreds) of patches in the RHEL5 Kernel SRPM.

So to answer the original question, you don't want an RPM, you want a SRPM.

Of course, sometimes you win...the GNU/ part and the /Linux part are relatively decoupled from each other. I was working at a company that used a newer box with devices that weren't yet supported by the stock kernel, so we grafted a Fedora 6 Kernel onto CentOS 5.2.

I'm sure the F6 kernel had hundreds of RHEL patches too.

JIM

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org>
To: "Aaron Porter" <atporter@gmail.com>, "Maxwell Spangler" <maxlists@maxwellspangler.com>
Cc: "novalug" <novalug@calypso.tux.org>
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2010 4:19:43 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: Re: [Novalug] Kernel Compiles

I was waiting for someone to make this point before responding.  ;)

And in that case, I would argue that #2 is actually:  
"2) Rebuilding the distro's packaged kernel with your choice of options and patches"


Starting with anything but the distro's packaged kernel source is a recipe for
integration and regression issues.  ;)



----- Original Message ----
From: Aaron Porter <atporter@gmail.com>

On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 7:49 PM, Maxwell Spangler
<maxlists@maxwellspangler.com> wrote:
> Despite starting with Linux around 1992 and compiling kernels so often I
> could do it without thinking, yesterday I couldn't even figure out what
> rpm package contained the source code.  The process is now drastically
> different from what it once was and the guides I found online repeatedly
> caution you away from recompiling as though you're working with
> explosives.

I think you're talking about two different tasks:

1) Compiling a kernel
2) Packaging a compiled kernel for your distribution of choice

Compiling a kernel, while the underlying tools have grown a ton, still
works almost exactly like it did years and years ago. A couple
advances like 'make oldconfig' have even simplified it.
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