From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1N4JTz-0000kw-Iu for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:19:27 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A40C4E0A65; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:19:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-ew0-f222.google.com (mail-ew0-f222.google.com [209.85.219.222]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C308E0A65 for ; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:19:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ewy22 with SMTP id 22so304943ewy.14 for ; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:19:25 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:from:to:subject:date :user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:message-id; bh=APc0iPnYwhbfPen8lo++F4fBT8ChWCXnGERSow9MbF8=; b=UVCJqMzDs5A3af7DF039CKB02oP+q2OSLP8bdWyeLR7GXXBKvhEJVWj+KLJ3ASvjGF zwxrOg/LtSZ8eBx5AsNYumgtQiKijfSa3M8WecQR711aqjDfuEVX48u0DlC4RKvqPLr2 fMG0NOgzjx2dP44nOLPX4Djy1YStICmTe3AEk= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; b=as+wnq9Fw/pfdk18+mb9K6Gt2Kxgo4NpTYqT9SVYqZeRtT2DJUrLDLOM96TI4Tn9iN Tj620KEBsVRAgBGHGLd+68gFgeekOw4GU3GoyY2j/ccV4bumvXL8hYUeUueIJdqxLfB9 BRZoa+Ch9g3p7Thz1Eo0HRgbqs93dU7G1qxM8= Received: by 10.216.90.15 with SMTP id d15mr1971718wef.219.1257016764836; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:19:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nazgul.localnet (196-210-153-40-rrdg-esr-2.dynamic.isadsl.co.za [196.210.153.40]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 10sm11748409eyz.35.2009.10.31.12.19.23 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:19:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Alan McKinnon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Kernel upgrading and linux symlink Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:18:22 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.12.2 (Linux/2.6.31-zen5; KDE/4.3.2; x86_64; ; ) References: <87hbtfo68r.fsf@newsguy.com> <877hubcu5a.fsf@newsguy.com> In-Reply-To: <877hubcu5a.fsf@newsguy.com> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <200910312118.22975.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: fa454007-13f2-4515-8647-8bbc9b5b9fc5 X-Archives-Hash: 50bd9298b9e4386bd558079d769b5b45 On Saturday 31 October 2009 20:09:37 Harry Putnam wrote: > Nikos Chantziaras writes: > > The link is created only if you have the "symlink" USE flag enabled. > > > > Also, "Gentoo requires that the [...] symbolic link points to the > > sources of the kernel you are running" is not entirely correct. It is > > required only when you want to build something against that > > kernel. > > > > . . . . Obviously, you need to create the symlink if you want to build > > the newly installed kernel, even though the system is still running an > > older one. > > Why is that obvious? That's what seemed confusing to me. > > Nothing about creating it with USE=symlin, eselect, or by hand is a > problem. Or hard to follow, and I've always just done it by hand. > Nikos is being kind to the document writers :-) In fact, the documentation is flat out wrong - there is no requirement for the symlink to point to the currently running kernel. It must point to the kernel sources you want to *configure* or use for an emerge that installs a kernel driver. For instance, you might be running 2.6.31-r4 and also have 2.6.31-r3 installed. To install nvidia-drivers, you must build it *twice* - against each kernel you want to use it with (nvidia-drivers builds and installs a kernel driver into /lib/modules/) USE="symlink" just runs ln -sfn /usr/src/ linux at the end of the merge , no further magic. It's purely a convenience thing, you can just as easily do that step yourself -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com