i've been running slackware for quite a while now, and decided to put gentoo on my laptop. so far i'm loving it. but when trying to emerge a particular piece of software i get this error:
* Could not find a usable .config in the kernel source directory.
* Please ensure that /usr/src/linux points to a configured set of Linux sources.
* If you are using KBUILD_OUTPUT, please set the environment var so that
* it points to the necessary object directory so that it might find .config.
!!! Unable to calculate Linux Kernel version
first i did a locate for .config nothing kernel related came up.
next, if i cd into /usr/src/linux the kernel source is there.
this is pretty much a fresh install, using the kernel that came with the newest version of gentoo. i did an emerge for a new kernel, and i have the newest available kernel.
do i have to make that kernel? i'm not sure what i'm missing.
if someone could help me out that would be great.
thanks
i did make menuconfig and changed one setting, and then saved, it makes the .config file.
emerge is working now. hopefully this will help anyone who might be having the same problem.

You can also do a simple:
make oldconfig

Cool