why is there a "+" in my kernel version string

[Geddy Leon]

I built my own kernel from source - it works, but I noticed:

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$ uname -a
Linux dell_laptop 2.6.38.2+ #2 SMP PREEMPT Sun May 8 16:13:24 PDT 2011 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T9400 @ 2.53GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Why "2.6.38.2+" ? What determines if there is a "+" sign? Can I control that somehow? I don't think the genkernel generated kernels had a "+".

Thanks

[cach0rr0]

this is normal, i cant remember what exactly controls it, but...

check out the Makefile ? include/config/kernel.release ?

[s4e8]

If the git tree doesn't end-up a tag, it will add a plus sign. It means this version plus something.

[Geddy Leon]

I see. I wonder what I added. I cloned a kernel tree from kernel.org, then made a 2.6.38.2 branch from the tag

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$ git checkout -b br_2.6.38.2 v2.6.38.2 

Then I configured the kernel, compiled kernel and modules and installed them both. During kernel compile some new files are generated including
../include/linux/version.h which has the kernel version but, not sure where the "+" sign comes in from.

git tree doesn't end-up a tag

do you mean I should tag my own branch ?

I think I'd like to get rid of the "+".

[kernelOfTruth]

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1933 ... el-version

The plus sign at the end of your version string is there as an indicator that the kernel was built from modified sources (that is, there were non-committed changes). This is also indicated by the comments in scripts/setlocalversion.

To avoid the '+' being appended despite having a dirty working directory, simply set LOCALVERSION explicityly when running make:

make LOCALVERSION=
You may also have to change the configuration option CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO to n in your kernel config (.config) before building:

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sed -i "s|CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO=.*|CONFIG_LOCALVERSION_AUTO=n|" .config