I am running Fedora core 4 and updated my kerenel to 2.6.17-1.2142_FC4-i686 through yumex. I updated the kernel development packages as well. To tes, I tried compiling the hello.cc module with the command " make -C /usr/src/kernels/2.6.17-1.2142_FC4-i686", but get this for output:

make: Entering directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.17-1.2142_FC4-i686'
CHK include/linux/version.h
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/conf.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/kxgettext.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/mconf.o
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/zconf.tab.o
HOSTLD scripts/kconfig/conf
scripts/kconfig/conf -s arch/i386/Kconfig
#
# using defaults found in .config
#
SPLIT include/linux/autoconf.h -> include/config/*
HOSTCC scripts/genksyms/genksyms.o
HOSTCC scripts/genksyms/lex.o
HOSTCC scripts/genksyms/parse.o
HOSTLD scripts/genksyms/genksyms
CC scripts/mod/empty.o
MKELF scripts/mod/elfconfig.h
HOSTCC scripts/mod/file2alias.o
HOSTCC scripts/mod/modpost.o
HOSTCC scripts/mod/sumversion.o
HOSTLD scripts/mod/modpost
make[1]: *** No rule to make target `init/main.o', needed by `init/built-in.o'. Stop.
make: *** [init] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.17-1.2142_FC4-i686'

I understand I need a configured and built kernel tree on my computer to compile modules, but I thought the kernel-devel package would take care of that. Is that the case or do I have to download a kernel from kernel.org and manually configure it? Also, if I have to manually configure the kernel, what options should I select? Thanks in advance.

Hi,

I have not used FC, so I only can guess.

Kernel-dev-package did not take care of configuration. (This is my guess)
In this case, you DO NOT have to visit www.kernel.org. (This is NOT my guess)
Instead, find your current .config file, copy it where you compile new one (the directory where you do make, make_modules...), there, do 'make oldconfig' This will take care of your concern. (This is NOT my guess)
You do not need to have fun finding correct options.

Happy Penguins!

PS, if my first guess is wrong, my post does not mean anything.

Thanks for the help. I tried downloading kernel 2.6.19.2 and installing. When rebooting, I found it would not start unless I disabled SELinux. I did find a workaround for the compile problem though.