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 1N4IGB-0007Fg-HI for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:01:07 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 5E4DAE09C4; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:01:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1DC75E062C for ; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:01:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF62C67061 for ; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:01:05 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: -3.155 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-3.155 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=-0.556, BAYES_00=-2.599] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id lA-JkvdgFSDY for ; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:00:59 +0000 (UTC) Received: from lo.gmane.org (lo.gmane.org [80.91.229.12]) (using TLSv1 with cipher AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 09C7466883 for ; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:00:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.50) id 1N4IFx-0005ym-TO for gentoo-user@gentoo.org; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:00:53 +0100 Received: from athedsl-374302.home.otenet.gr ([79.131.14.28]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:00:53 +0100 Received: from realnc by athedsl-374302.home.otenet.gr with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:00:53 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org From: Nikos Chantziaras Subject: [gentoo-user] Re: Kernel upgrading and linux symlink Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:00:35 +0200 Organization: Lucas Barks Message-ID: References: <87hbtfo68r.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; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: athedsl-374302.home.otenet.gr User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.4pre) Gecko/20091019 Thunderbird/3.0b4 In-Reply-To: <87hbtfo68r.fsf@newsguy.com> Sender: news X-Archives-Salt: dbc5c90c-9476-4ea9-a2f7-3811a872e9db X-Archives-Hash: f2c624b9ed4ce2cf3283067ae72b27da On 10/31/2009 06:52 PM, Harry Putnam wrote: > Looking at the kernel upgrade pages at > http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/kernel-upgrade.xml > > Its a bit confusing about the symlink creation. I've wondered about > it a few times. > > At the top, you're told how to get the sources and then a discussion > of the symlink follows. > > It appears you are expected to change the symlink to the newly > installed sources. > > But then it says: > 4. Updating the /usr/src/linux symbolic link > > "Gentoo requires that the /usr/src/linux symbolic link points to the > sources of the kernel you are running." > > So if gentoo `requires' the symlink to point to the running kernel > why are we changing it to the newly installed but not yet compiled or > started kernel? > > And in fact does it really matter if its pointing at the newly > installed or actual running kernel, when kernel compiling operations > take place? 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. And, btw, the symlink is changed easily with eselect: eselect kernel list to get a list and: eselect kernel set N to point the symlink to the Nth kernel. So, to sum it up, when you update to a new kernel, first update the symlink (or let the ebuild take care of it), build the kernel, boot it, *then* rebuild external modules (like ati-drivers). If you know what you're doing, you don't need to reboot before rebuilding external modules, for example I do: ebuild /usr/portage/x11-drivers/ati-drivers/ati-drivers-N.ebuild compile mkdir /lib/modules/KERNEL_VERSION/video cp /var/tmp/portage/x11-drivers/ati-drivers-N/work/common/lib/modules/fglrx/build_mod/2.6.x/fglrx.ko /lib/modules/KERNEL_VERSION/video/ But it general, just boot the new kernel and emerge external modules again; safer and more straight forward.