From owner-freebsd-doc Thu Jan 18 0:34: 4 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from moby.geekhouse.net (moby.geekhouse.net [64.81.6.36]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AE38B37B401; Thu, 18 Jan 2001 00:33:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from laptop.baldwin.cx (john@dhcp150.geekhouse.net [192.168.1.150]) by moby.geekhouse.net (8.11.0/8.9.3) with ESMTP id f0I8bVs67194; Thu, 18 Jan 2001 00:37:31 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.4.0 on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20010118094123.B6927@rapier.smartspace.co.za> Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 00:33:28 -0800 (PST) From: John Baldwin To: Neil Blakey-Milner Subject: Re: too much confusion over kernel building Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org, dan@langille.org, Dima Dorfman , "Donald J . Maddox" Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On 18-Jan-01 Neil Blakey-Milner wrote: > On Thu 2001-01-18 (02:23), Donald J . Maddox wrote: >> On Wed, Jan 17, 2001 at 11:15:28PM -0800, Dima Dorfman wrote: >> > > Over the past few weeks and months, I've seen far too many people >> > > using "make buildkernel KERNEL=MYKERNEL" when they should have >> > > used "config MYKERNEL". >> > >> > I'm not quite sure we should be advocating using the older, `config >> > MYKERN` method. It doesn't really have any advantages over the newer >> > one, and suggesting different ones for different purposes will only >> > confuse the novices, IMO. Plus, `make buildkernel KERNEL=MYKERNEL` is >> > quite a bit simpler than, >> > >> > config MYKERNEL && cd ../../compile/MYKERNEL && make depend && make >> > >> > So, my question is, why use the older one? I can understand why >> > people still use it because they've been doing it that way for the >> > last X years, but that's no reason to teach it to new people. >> >> It seems to me that most of the confused are usually just trying to >> recompile a custom kernel to add, for example, sound support. It's >> ridiculous to make these people do a full world build just to be able >> to hear sound from their soundcard. Obviously, if you have updated >> your source tree from, it's very dangerous NOT to do the buildworld - >> buildkernel - installkernel - installworld dance. But it's silly to >> advocate that someone who just installed 4.2, and simply wants to hear >> an MP3 must do a full buildworld... Just my $0.02. > > Who exactly is advocating a full buildworld? The "new" style should not > require a full buildworld. If it doesn't work, it's a bug. buildkernel assumes a worst case environment by default. The problem is that there isn't the One True Way(tm) to build a kernel that works for all cases. buildkernel is needed when updating the system, but if you are just changing the kernel config and building a new kernel w/o changing your source tree, you should be using the old method. I don't actually use buildkernel as it is only needed in very rare cases such as when crossing over a binutils upgrade _anyway_. -- John Baldwin -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ PGP Key: http://www.baldwin.cx/~john/pgpkey.asc "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message