[Techtalk] Trying to patch the kernel...

[Mary]

On Sat, May 31, 2003, Akkana Peck wrote:
> What kernel source did you start with before you applied the patch? 
> Was it a tarball named something like linux-2.4.20.tar.bz2 ? 
> It might be best if you made a new directory (it doesn't have to be in
> /usr/src/linux -- just extract it somewhere convenient like your home
> directory),

In fact, it's generally better *not* to overwrite /usr/src/linux (the
kernel README file says this, unfortunately, the first time you see the
README file is after extracting the tarball!). As Rudy pointed out these
are the kernel headers (you can use the kernel headers to compile
standalone modules, but you can't patch them and get a whole new
kernel... the kernel code is missing!). You will almost certainly not
want to overwrite them.

Most kernel.org tarballs unpack into linux-version/ directories anyway,
so even if you unpacked it into /usr/src, you'd end up with the source
in /usr/src/linux-2.4.20 (or whatever).

-Mary