Problems with Patch command

geek.ksa · 07-13-2009, 02:41 PM

Hey guys,

I have an RHEL 5 distro with kernel 2.6.18

I went to kernel to org and downloaded the latest patch, and then I took almost half an hour reading the man page for the patch command, i was super frustrated at how poorly documented it is.

any way, after some googling, i copied the patch to /usr/src, and then ran the patch command:

Code:

patch -p0 < patch-2.6.30.1

I got below error message which i think is caused by the p0 option:

Code:

can't find file to patch at input line 5
Perhaps you used the wrong -p or --strip option?
The text leading up to this was:
--------------------------
|diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
|index c302ddf..5236573 100644
|--- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
|+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
--------------------------
File to patch:

it prompts for the file to patch, but i don't know what to input! there is no file number or something like that. I tried running the command with no p option but got same result.

Please help me figure out what is wrong with this.

clvic · 07-13-2009, 03:57 PM

As a rule of thumb: if patch prompts you for input, there's something wrong.
Maybe you're in the wrong directory, you should adjust the '-p' option, or you applying the patch to the wrong kernel version.
Anyway, I do like this:
$> cd /usr/src/my_kernel
$> patch -p1 < my_patch

And that's it. Using -p1 makes the patch command ignore the first part of the path.

To go further, maybe a howto can help you better than me and the man page:
http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/Kernel-HOWTO-6.html

Tinkster · 07-13-2009, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by geek.ksa

Hey guys,

I have an RHEL 5 distro with kernel 2.6.18

I went to kernel to org and downloaded the latest patch, and then I took almost half an hour reading the man page for the patch command, i was super frustrated at how poorly documented it is.

any way, after some googling, i copied the patch to /usr/src, and then ran the patch command:

Code:

patch -p0 < patch-2.6.30.1

I got below error message which i think is caused by the p0 option:

Code:

can't find file to patch at input line 5
Perhaps you used the wrong -p or --strip option?
The text leading up to this was:
--------------------------
|diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
|index c302ddf..5236573 100644
|--- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
|+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
--------------------------
File to patch:

it prompts for the file to patch, but i don't know what to input! there is no file number or something like that. I tried running the command with no p option but got same result.

Please help me figure out what is wrong with this.

Couple of things...

a) With RHEL you *shouldn't* try to use vanilla kernel patches; stick
with what RHEL throws your way.
b) A patch for 2.6.30.1 will almost certainly NOT work with a 2.6.18 kernel.

Cheers,
Tink