Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 22:03:49 +0200 From: Szilveszter Adam <sziszi@bsd.hu> To: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: docs/41253: config(8) and/or Handbook deficiency Message-ID: <20020802200349.GA1135@fonix.adamsfamily.xx> In-Reply-To: <p05111b46b970690e5ba0@[192.168.254.205]> References: <200208020720.g727K4LR061796@freefall.freebsd.org> <p05111b44b97058d28d68@[192.168.254.205]> <20020802183635.A54849@abigail.blackend.org> <p05111b46b970690e5ba0@[192.168.254.205]>
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On Fri, Aug 02, 2002 at 09:59:51AM -0700, Rich Morin wrote: > Perhaps I'm just confused. As it happens, I DO have the sources on my > FreeBSD machine, but I thought that (as in the case of SunOS) this was > not really necessary to configure a new kernel. In any case, when I > recently built a kernel, I didn't mess about in /usr/src at all. I > just used the /sys/i386/conf area, as suggested by the config(8) page: > > config should be run from the conf subdirectory of the system source > (usually /sys/ARCH/conf), where ARCH represents one of the architectures > supported by FreeBSD. ... Although much has already been said, I will try to reiterate this again, so that it will be together for the sake of the archives. On a closed-source OS, you cannot really rebuild the kernel. Depending on its modularness, you may be able to reconfigure it to some extent. (Windows does not allow you this at all, commercial unices may) There are even solutions that let you *relink* it from .o files, but even that does not count as rebuilding. (afaik, this is what BSD/OS without a source license does). However, on an open-source OS, of which FreeBSD is a variety, rebuilding and recompiling from source mean the same thing. For this, you have to have the kernel sources and a working compiler toolchain. Recompiling may be done together with reconfiguring a kernel, but also without: eg after a source upgrade, I recompile the kernel but do not reconfigure it, the configuration normally does not change. On the other hand, reconfiguring a kernel without recompiling it may be possible to different extents on open-source OSs, on some only boot-time tweaking is possible (usually at the loader stage) but eg OpenBSD has UKC, which also works on a loaded kernel. (Although you may need to reboot for the changes to take effect). On FreeBSD, similar effect can only be reached by using ddb(4), but this requires console access and quite big expertise. Oh, and /sys is usually just a symlink to /usr/src/sys. Hey, at this rate this could even be made into a FAQ entry, since admins from commercial unices may bump into this difference... not everybody comes from Linux to BSD:-) -- Regards: Szilveszter ADAM Szombathely Hungary To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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