[CentOS-devel] Building a custom 2.6.9 kernel

Fri Feb 3 20:34:06 UTC 2006
Matt Hyclak <hyclak at math.ohiou.edu>

On Fri, Feb 03, 2006 at 03:22:19PM -0500, William L. Thomson Jr. enlightened us:
> > These are only the kernel headers. They won't help you.
> 
> You keep saying that, but they do contain a full source. I made a kernel
> with this one kernel-devel-2.6.9-22.EL.i686.rpm. As offered on IRC, I
> can do each command again, and pastebin the output.
>

No, they really don't. I just listed the files in a kernel-devel rpm and the
only .c files are in the scripts directory. It's pretty hard to compile the
kernel without any source.

> I also provided links to the kernel I built using it, and the config?
> So FACT is it's much more than headers, and does contain a complete
> source, at least for i686.
> 

Try again.

> > I really doubt this. The devel packages aren't all the source. It's
> > just what you need to build against the kernel, not to build a new
> > kernel.
> 
> Stop doubting, look for yourself, or attempt for yourself. rpm install
> the package. Then move the sources to /usr/src. Copy my config into that
> dir, and build a kernel. Just like I did.
> 

The rpm installs to /usr/src/kernels/$VERSION

I suggest you browse that directory again and note the lack of .c files.

> I am not a troll, and had legitimate questions, one can choose to answer
> or ignore. Never got an answer of it someone had successfully compiled a
> x86_64 kernel using CentOS sources.
>

What do you think people run?

> >  You're not paying anything for the distribution,
> > and you're not RUNNING the distribution, you're building its kernel
> > outside of its environment. I fail to see a driving need for us to
> > offer help for that.
> 
> Neither am I paying on the gentoo side. I have asked way more CentOS/RH
> specific questions in the Gentoo forum, and get no flack. They are not
> claiming to be an enterprise community distro. Like CentOS, so there
> should be a higher tolerance on CentOS. Seems there is not on the
> channel and allot of bias attitudes.
> 
> Instead of focusing on actually help. Which one does not have to, the
> moderators could have just ignored. Not like I was interrupting other
> conversations, being rude, or using foul language.
> 
> Guess the irc channel is a dictatorship, with little room for freedom of
> speech and choice.
>

No, you were asking off-topic questions. Just because you were bastardizing
source code from CentOS doesn't mean we need to support it. Why don't you go
ask in #redhat and see how it goes over. Better yet, open a bugzilla entry. 

> For the last time. I did. If you keep insisting it's impossible I will
> gladly reproduce steps, and provide bash_history. Or do it yourself and
> see. I am not lying or making this up. No point in that?
>

See above. Do an rpm -qpl kernel-devel-foo.rpm. Look for .c files. 

> > These are two seperate kernel versions. You can't expect to mix and
> > match between the two.  2.6.9.11 has been updated for security
> > reasons. Running it means you'll be running a kernel with
> > vulnerabilities.
> 
> Um, I am suing a 2.6.9-22 kernel just renaming it to 2.6.9-11 so the
> binary driver will not bitch on modprobe or insmod. Look at the config
> file and you will see I tag on the local revision.
> 
> However I have mentioned the security reasons to Adaptec, who only
> offers binaries ATM for 2.6.9-11.EL
> 
> > Are you using the same build environment the kernel is expecting? Have
> > you applied all the patches. Are you using actual kernel source
> > instead of the -devel packages?
> 
> Tried the actual sources had patching problems. The kernel-devel package
> was properly patched, and worked perfectly in x86 i686. Just not x86_64.
> 
> > Have you applied the patches. It's possible that the patches create
> > the additional files you need. or that somewhere through this
> > nightmare of a build process something failed silently or was
> > excluded.
> 
> Actually I had the exact problem I am having by a particular patch.
> Because I ran into it before when applying patches to the src rpm kernel
> sources. I have considered using the src.rpm to reverse that patch out
> of the x86_64 kernel-devel rpm. So I am leaning more to a patch causing
> the problem than not. I find it hard to believe a vanilla 2.6.9 kernel
> source would not compile a x86_64 kernel
> 
> > You should really be seeking help from within the gentoo community
> > rather than trying to piece two drastically different distros
> > together. This will only end badly for you. If it's running on another
> > distro, why again should we assist your efforts?
> 
> I have, and they are doing their best to help. FYI, allot of the missing
> stuff is there in the Gentoo kernel sources, and current vanilla ones.
> So the problem is most deff CentOS/RH specific. So they can't help, thus
> me starting by asking if anyone has build a custom x86_64 kernel on
> centos.
> 

CentOS merely takes what RH gives us. If you are so convinced the problem
lies there, take it up with them.

-- 
Matt Hyclak
Department of Mathematics 
Department of Social Work
Ohio University
(740) 593-1263