3rd [Techtalk] kernel What have i done

[Mandi]

(warning.  this got a bit long, and probably isn't interesting to 
people not running mandrake...  :) )

At 08 August 2002, Beth Johnson <linux.chick at verizon.net> wrote:

>On Thu, 2002-08-08 at 04:10, Andrew wrote:
>
>> 	I began this by getting the 2.4.19 source from kernel.org. 
>> (Actually this has been an ongoing hurdle, started at 2.4.18 weeks 
>> ago.)
>> 	Because 2.4.3 is such a big jump to 2.4.19 I thought it good 
>> to simply compile a new kernel. This may be where it went wrong. 
>
>Hmm, could the problem be that you're updating a Mandrake kernel with a
>generic one?  Could the Mandrake distro be putting something in a
>different directory than where the generic kernel source expects?  It's
>for that reason that I stick with Red Hat updates for my Red Hat
>machines, never a generic.  I don't know if that matters or not, but
>I've read that it can.
>

Mandrake won't care if you want to replace an mdk kernel with a custom-
built kernel.  

Going back to your message about missing "linux/limits.h":

you won't be able to build a kernel without all the appropriate rpms 
installed.  Mandrake pulls the .h files needed to build the kernel 
out of the glibc packages, and puts them into a package called kernel-
headers.  You'll need this package to build kernels.  ibilio.org 
is probably the best place to get packages for old versions if you 
don't have the cds handy.  don't try to add a package from 8.1 or 
8.2, there are versioning differences, etc.

You can use the utility rpmdrake to see which packages you have installed 
on your machine.  or, you can rpm from the command line.  for example:


[root at erinyes linux-2.4.19]# rpm -qa | grep kernel 
kernel-smp-2.4.18.6mdk-1-1mdk
kernel-headers-2.4.18-25mdk
kernel-2.4.18.6mdk-1-1mdk
kernel-source-2.4.18-8.1mdk

My machine is running 8.2, and i installed the full complement of 
mandrake's development tools, so i have kernel-headers already.  
If you have kernel-headers already, run MandrakeUpdate against a 
good mirror to make sure you have the latest fixes for any of the 
libraries.

if you don't have kernel-headers (and it sounds like you don't), 
fire up rpmdrake (it's slow....).  There are two tabs, "installed" 
and "installable".  Click on "installable", then select "All" from 
the dropdown menu right under the tabs.  you can scroll through the 
list, or type "kernel-headers" in the search box.  when it finishes 
searching, you can click on the kernel-headers listing in the box 
(it will get a gold checkmark), and then click the "Install/Remove" 
button at the top of the window.  

rpmdrake will take care of dependencies, and it will ask you to make 
sure they're all okay.  It will also ask you for the cd-roms that 
the files are on.  if you don't have the cdroms, that's another message,
as it's a bit of a process as well.  :)

HTH.  Please post more info if you're still having trouble!

--mandi