Kernel updating

[cipherus]

When switching to a new kernel, generally you have to rebuild audio, video, acpi, virtualbox, and or whatever external module packages all the way down. Does this seem like too much of a hassle for maybe even the smallest differences in kernel sources?

What about just copying module libs to the new /lib/modules/kernel_dir/ ?

Or maybe source dir hotpatching or something?

[mjf55]

If you follow the guide http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/kernel-upgrade.xml, there is very little work involved, just takes cpu cycles.

[baeksu]

You can't copy modules across different kernels.

The above advice will handle will get you going.

Don't forget to symlink /usr/src/linux to the new kernel sources!
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[cipherus]

Yea, the download and compile time is just a monster though... It used to feel productive watching things compile all day.

[AllenJB]

Linux is a multi-tasking OS. DO SOMETHING ELSE WHILE THINGS COMPILE!

[sundialsvc4]

One thing that's "nice" to do while compiling big things is ... nice.

Now, that won't completely eliminate the impact of a background compile, because most garden-variety PC's have the cheapest on-board disk controllers imaginable (or maybe it's just that I'm cheap ... ...), but nice does give the scheduler a clue that, even though this activity might be the busiest, it's not the one that you want to give front-and-center attention to. And I find that nice make usually runs no slower than ordinary make.

{n.b. as you probably know, nice command... causes Linux to run command... at a reduced dispatching-priority, that is, "in the background." When you do something "in the foreground" that requires CPU cycles, the dispatcher will pre-empt the background-level activities (within reason...) to make way for your request, instead of treating the two activities equally.}

[Nick C]

not forgetting if you have dual/quad core cpus you can use make -j x && make -j x modules_install (where x is the desired value for -j, normally number of cpu's +1) to have the kernel use all your processors, cut my kernel compile time down to just under 1 minute
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[ok]

[Etal]

[cipherus]

[NathanZachary]

WOW, I never thought of that either. For some reason, I thought it would just pull that information from make.conf, but that doesn't make sense, now does it?
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[arnvidr]

I never thought of that either!

Although a kernel compile doesn't take long either way for me, -j8 does wonders for my emerges! I'll try to remember this for sure!
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[d2_racing]

[jonnevers]

[mikegpitt]

Emerge the app module-rebuild... it will list all packages that needs to be recompiled after a kernel update.

[Monkeh]

[tanderson]

[cipherus]

I was raised on linux with gentoo so many things done in this community I took for the standard. Recently I installed Fedora 8 to help with practicing for my Linux+ and I found this to be very much not the case! For instance, the enormous wealth of online documentation for gentoo just isn't available for any other distro. Between the online manuals, gentoo-wiki and these forums almost anything you've ever dreamed of doing is covered in detail. Even the Red Hat sponsored documentation is not as well organized and descriptively weak (at best) compared the the gentoo manuals. This maybe comes from their design perspective to not even need documentation, just use it and it goes.

When it comes to kernels though, with gentoo being so modular I just was thinking that upgrading a kernel from r1 to r2 shouldn't require recompiling half the packages on my system. But looking at it now I think I can see why it would be necessary. If for nothing else, the stability in garunteeing that no kernel hooks have changed. For another, who would maintain all these tiny patches from one kernel to another? I sure wouldn't want that job.

[Rad]

Well, actually upgrading the kernel almost never does require you to recompile many other packages.

You only have to do that for kernel external modules, and (very rarely), to update userspace tools that were broken by such an update.

[McLink]

[d2_racing]

[jonnevers]

[tanderson]

[jonnevers]

[steveL]

Yeah, module-rebuild ftw ;P