Re: [gentoo-user] Upgrading from 5.14 to 6.0 version

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 11, 2022 at 1:25 AM Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Is there some major change that causes copying .config file from 5.14 to
>> 5.18 or higher to break?
> So, I just upgraded to 5.15 recently and tend to stick to LTS kernels,
> precisely to minimize this sort of thing.
>
> My guess is that you missed something in make oldconfig, but obviously
> without exact errors that could be completely wrong.
>
> I can't speak to 6.0 specifically, but one thing that I've found is a
> gotcha is when they consolidate config items under higher level ones.
> So they'll take what used to be 50 questions, and turn it into 1
> question with 50 questions underneath it.  The 1 question shows up as
> a new config item, and if you don't appreciate what it does and answer
> no to it, then you'll disable every item underneath it.
>
> Basically, don't assume that any new question is a new feature, and if
> you say no you'll still have all the pre-existing features.  It could
> be a virtual question and answering no turns off a whole bunch of
> things that you had previously said yes to.  You need to review
> oldconfig questions pretty carefully.  You could try defaulting the
> answers but even then the defaults aren't always reasonable.  They
> don't just turn on things you don't need.  For example, by default
> linux turns off CGROUP support, and almost everything uses that today.
> That was just the first thing I checked, and I bet there are a million
> other gotchas like that.
>
> --
> Rich
>
>


I don't blindly answer those questions even tho it can be time consuming
at times. I tend to look at a new feature as something I don't need,
since I'm not adding hardware.  I still look to see if it is something
new that could be useful.  The new features are usually marked as new so
they're easy to see.  What gets me, it asks for something that I've
already done before and it has the option I chose before already
selected but asks me anyway.  That's kinda weird. 

When I was going through oldconfig, I noticed that when I answered yes
to a new thing, files system option that I could possibly need one day,
that a whole bunch of related new stuff followed behind it.  It makes
logical sense but it does open a can of worms for sure. 

I wish there was a better way to update kernels but thing is, I can't
figure out a better way to do it either.  I suspect if there was a
better way, someone would have figured it out by now anyway.  ;-)

Now to reboot this thing, eventually.  lol

Dale

:-)  :-)