Help with make oldconfig/menuconfig fiasco
 

I think I'm screwed... I missed a step as I was preparing to compile a kernel (my first time), and I can't find my old .config file. I"ve got three config files in /usr/src/linux: .config, .config.cmd, and .config.old. They are all date-stamped yesterday.

Well, what happened is that I didn't run 'make oldconfig' first. I wanted the experience of 'make menuconfig', but didn't realize how tedious and confusing it is. I completed menuconfig, and as far as I can tell I've got no old config. So now what?

How can I find out what is loading as module and what is compiled into kernel in my present system? That's probably my biggest confusion. I read posts and faqs and howtos before starting this, and people are always saying "DON"T load such & such as module!". People don't say "whatever you do, DON"T compile such & such into the kernel!" But going through menuconfig, most defaults are "M". I basically selected "Y" for everything. And I have no idea if this is going to work.

So I stopped at 'make'. Now how do I start over? What needs to be deleted? Here are the directories in /usr/src:

/usr/src/linux (link to /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.10)
/usr/src/linux-patches
/usr/src/linux-source-2.6.10
/usr/src/rpm (what's THAT doing there??)

I also have my linux-source tar.bz2 file in /usr/src, so I can do it again easily. My system works well; I just wanted to tweak some things (especially high memory). The last thing I want to do is mess it up!

Thanks,

You should be able to use "make clean" and it will clean things back up, I would reccomend you download a new kernel and experiment with that one (if you haven't already), that way if something goes wrong, you have the original to fall back on.

If you use make menuconfig again, it should re-load what you selected so you can see what is going to be built into the kernel and what is going to be a module.

As far as getting back to where things were, you could reunzip the package, or delete (or rename) the .config file and re-run make menuconfig at it will return to the default selections.

Hope this helps

Charles

Thanks, Charles.

> I would reccomend you download a new kernel and experiment with that
> one (if you haven't already), that way if something goes wrong, you have
> the original to fall back on.

Yes I downloaded the 2.6.10.34-7 with apt-get. I know it's not the very latest kernel, but it's the latest one in the repository for my distro (Ubunto Hoary).

This was my first expedition into kernel sources, and I'm not absolutely sure what was in /usr/src/ before I started this. I had to create the symlink 'Linux'. And as I remember it, there were no kernel sources in /usr/src/. Is that likely? Is that how Ubuntu installs by default? If so, I could delete everything except the kernel tarball I downloaded.

> If you use make menuconfig again, it should re-load what you selected so
> you can see what is going to be built into the kernel and what is going to
> be a module.

But I need to get back to the way it was compiled when I installed Ubuntu (that's how I've left it up to now, and it runs great). The plan was simply to tweak things (such as high memory and processor type), and eliminate whatever was compiled by default that I don't need. None of this was really necessary; I was doing it as a learning experience--and that part of it working out according to plan. :D


Thanks for you help,
Tim

Yeah, kernel sources are in a subdirectory like /usr/src/linux-2.6.10 or something like that.

Since you are working in a directory with nothing else but your new kernel, you could delete everything in it and re-unzip the kernel or just delete the file named ".config" then when you run make menuconfig, it will restore the selections back to the defaults.

If you choose the latter, after make menuconfig, remember to make clean to remove the first attempt.

And for my 2 cents worth, I like to use xconfig instead of menuconfig as it gives a graphic interface and when you click on an item, it gives the help section below.


Charles