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* Re: [gentoo-user]  Re: Kernel upgrading and linux symlink
  @ 2009-10-31 19:18 99%     ` Alan McKinnon
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 1+ results
From: Alan McKinnon @ 2009-10-31 19:18 UTC (permalink / raw
  To: gentoo-user

On Saturday 31 October 2009 20:09:37 Harry Putnam wrote:
> Nikos Chantziaras <realnc@arcor.de> 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/<kernel version>)

USE="symlink" just runs 
ln -sfn /usr/src/<new_version> 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



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2009-10-31 16:52     [gentoo-user] Kernel upgrading and linux symlink Harry Putnam
2009-10-31 18:00     ` [gentoo-user] " Nikos Chantziaras
2009-10-31 18:09       ` Harry Putnam
2009-10-31 19:18 99%     ` Alan McKinnon

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