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Well, my general question is how does the patching system work? I able to compile a kernel source without a problem but I'm having troubles patching some things. When you get a patch for a driver should it be the exactly the same kernel version? For example, the current kernel is at 2.6.13.4 but my kernel driver patch is label 2.6.13. Should I only be using 2.6.13 with this patch? Or does the 2.6.13.4 patch already include the updated driver? Is there a way to find out without compiling?
My other question is kernel.org has the full source of a kernel and also a patch for that kernel. Is that kernel patch to upgrade from its previous version? If so, how early of a version is it able to patch?
When you patch a kernel, the patch should follow directly in numbered order from the previous version.
So say you have 2.6.13 and 2.6.14 is out.
You would patch 2.6.14 to your 2.6.13 kernel source, recompile it, then reboot after all the steps of recompiling a kernel.
Then if 2.6.15 was released, you would only have to download the patch again. But say you had 2.6.13 and version 2.6.17 was out. You cannot patch 2.6.17 to your 2.6.13 directly, you would have to patch each version up to the latest. When this occurs, it's usually just easier to just download the full source of the latest release.
As for your driver compile. 2.6.13.4 sounds like your using a kernel from whatever distribution you have. Kernel.org doesn't use this scheme and most distro's do their own kernel work or coding to release their own setup, etc. This driver you have most likely should work with your 2.6.13.4. And each time you recompile your kernel, you will need to compile this driver there afterwards until possibly the support is then built into the kernel itself.
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