Are the symbolic links in /boot simply for abbreviations?

I assume that there are other 'functions' that need to know about 'System.map' without knowing that it is actually 'System.map-ide-2.4.20'

The reason I ask is that it just looks weird to have a symbolic link to a file that is the very next file in the listing. Examples:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 May 12 11:41 System.map -> System.map-ide-2.4.20
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 563791 Mar 18 00:03 System.map-ide-2.4.20


lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 May 12 11:41 config -> config-ide-2.4.20
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 36222 Mar 18 00:03 config-ide-2.4.20

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 18 May 12 11:41 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-ide-2.4.20
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1170308 Mar 18 00:03 vmlinuz-ide-2.4.20

Thanks...

Yes, they're only for abbreviations. Its only a symlink.

drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 1024 May 15 10:49 ./
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root 4096 May 18 15:00 ../
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 529470 Apr 28 21:16 System.map
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 512 Apr 28 20:03 boot.0300
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 24 Apr 28 21:30 boot_message.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 19773 Apr 28 21:07 config
drwx------ 2 root root 12288 Apr 28 19:46 lost+found/
-rw------- 1 root root 24064 May 15 10:49 map
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 982533 Apr 28 21:16 vmlinuz

Interesting.

Your posting doesn't include any links.

So, did you just remove the links and do something like:

mv System.map-ide-2.4.20 System.map

Or, is this just something you end up with after doing some custom kernel compile or something? My /boot was automatically created during the initial install of Slackware 9.0 and included the links.

thanks...

Exactly, I just removed the symlinks. I'm using a custom kernel, but this has nothing to do with the symlinks. At least not in this case.

System.map isn't just mysterious to the n00bs it's rather a mysterious file in general. There are some sites around that go into very technical detail in an attempt to "demystify" System.map but even those just confuse most users. Take a look on google.com/linux for System.map and you'll get an idea. I've found a total of 2 pages out of, well a lot, that explained it well enough for my curiousity. Even then (and now) I still wasn't really sure what purpose it served.



Cool