Dave wrote:

> WOW!!!! Thanks for the post. Im gonna digest this, do some reading
> about the kernel and then post a followup. Thanks again!!

While you're doing that have a look at these as well:
Please trim your quotes,
http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanb/documents/quotingguide.html
and don't top post,
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/usenet/brox.html
--
Two Ravens
"...hit the squirrel..."

floyd@barrow.com (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote in message news:<87r7on9taq.fld@barrow.com>...
> Also, I don't recall that you mentioned which kernel you are
> using, but the 2.6 kernels can be configured to put a config.gz
> pseudo file into /proc. Using that configuration certainly
> makes it easy to keep track of which config file is which!

What's the name of the documentation file for this? I'd like
to know more of this.

> There is essentially *never* any reason for most people to do a
> "make mrproper". It returns the kernel directory to the
> condition it was in the distribution archive. Unless you are a
> kernel developer, and have made changes to the source code which
> need to be archived, that is a worthless condition.

I've been wondering about these for years, so now I'll ask.
What exactly is the difference between mrproper and clean?

As for the kernel tree, once a kernel has been compiled and installed,
am I assuming right that there is nothing that uses the kernel
source tree and that it could either be cleaned or deleted? (I'm not
considering or talking about certain programs that rightly or
wrongly need the current kernel tree to compile,
just the system itself.)

ton

tonekd92 <delk9358@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Also, I don't recall that you mentioned which kernel you are
>> using, but the 2.6 kernels can be configured to put a config.gz
>> pseudo file into /proc. Using that configuration certainly
>> makes it easy to keep track of which config file is which!
>
> What's the name of the documentation file for this? I'd like
> to know more of this.

/usr/src/linux/init/Kconfig, sections IKCONFIG and IKCONFIG_PROC

> I've been wondering about these for years, so now I'll ask.
> What exactly is the difference between mrproper and clean?

See /usr/src/linux/Makefile, search for the string
"Cleaning is done in three levels".

> As for the kernel tree, once a kernel has been compiled and installed,
> am I assuming right that there is nothing that uses the kernel
> source tree and that it could either be cleaned or deleted? (I'm not
> considering or talking about certain programs that rightly or
> wrongly need the current kernel tree to compile,
> just the system itself.)

If you look at /usr/include/linux and /usr/include/asm, you will find
that they are symbolic links to the kernel tree.
As you say, you don't need the kernel tree unless you are compiling
certain software.

I recommend that you clean the kernel tree, but leave it. You might
want to compile 'certain programs'. You might want to upgrade your
kernel. Bug hunting might lead you into the kernel source.
You might want /usr/src/linux/Documentation (or other documentation,
see above).

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

Laurenz Albe wrote:
> If you look at /usr/include/linux and /usr/include/asm, you will find
> that they are symbolic links to the kernel tree.

wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. this was (perhaps still is) the case on some
distros, but it is a Bad Thing (tm). the dirs /usr/include/linux and
/usr/include/asm should contain the header files of the source tree of the
kernel against which glibc is compiled. making these dirs symlinks into
/usr/src/linux is therefore a bad idea, because a user may want to compile
a new version of the kernel, for example.

this is why slack provides the kernel-headers package. it contains the
right header files, no symlinks but actual header files.

> As you say, you don't need the kernel tree unless you are compiling
> certain software.

on a properly set-up system, you don't need the kernel source tree for
compiling software.

--
Joost Kremers joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

tonekd92 wrote:

> I've been wondering about these for years, so now I'll ask.
> What exactly is the difference between mrproper and clean?

the major difference for most users is this: make clean cleans the object
files/etc, overall clean up. make mrproper does the same, AND removes
your .config, and cleans a bit more. the bit about removing your .config is
very important.

Laurenz Albe <albe@culturallNOSPAM.com> wrote in message news:<cjbl6f$oob$1@at-vie-newsmaster01.nextra.at>...
> tonekd92 <delk9358@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > What's the name of the documentation file for this? I'd like
> > to know more of this.
>
> /usr/src/linux/init/Kconfig, sections IKCONFIG and IKCONFIG_PROC

I remember now seeing this when configging (my own made up word)
the kernel, but I didn't enable since I save the config each time
anyway. I'm sure it could be useful for some things.

> > I've been wondering about these for years, so now I'll ask.
> > What exactly is the difference between mrproper and clean?
>
> See /usr/src/linux/Makefile, search for the string
> "Cleaning is done in three levels".

yeah, I've read that but I was seeking a more condesed answer, but
after
reading it again, that's probably not easy as that part is pages long.


> I recommend that you clean the kernel tree, but leave it. You might
> want to compile 'certain programs'. You might want to upgrade your
> kernel. Bug hunting might lead you into the kernel source.
> You might want /usr/src/linux/Documentation (or other documentation,
> see above).
>
> Yours,
> Laurenz Albe

thanks that helps. you know for years I never thought of cleaning the
tree
after compiling. these days with larger hd's it's really not an issue,
unless there are partitiion size issues and other uses. i remember one
time compiling mozilla, i think, which needed about 500 megs of space
or so.