On Tuesday 03 Jan 2012 01:13:17 Gregory Shearman wrote: > In linux.gentoo.user, you wrote: > > On Mon, 2 Jan 2012 20:58:18 -0200 > > > > Claudio Roberto França Pereira <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I'm not currently at my Gentoo box, sorry for this, but if I don't > >> post this now I'll probably forget to post it at all. > >> Anyways, last time I tried upgrading my kernel, I copied my .config > >> and ran make menuconfig as my main user, but it whined about missing > >> ncurses libraries or something. After su'ing, everything went better > >> than expected. > >> Was that normal behavior? I remember configuring my kernel as user > >> before. Even compiling it as user. > > > > How did you install the kernel sources? > > > > If you downloaded them as a normal user you should be able to make > > menuconfig; make; sudo make install just fine. > > > > If portage installed the sources, then you should > > configure/compile/install as root. The sources are owned by portage > > (IIRC) and you can't su to that user, leaving only root. Or, try adding > > yourself to the portage group. Personally I think that's too much > > effort for zero gain so I always do it as root. > > I use a separate output directory that is under control of the user. > What I do as an ordinary user: > > mkdir <kerneloutputdir> > > zcat /proc/config.gz > <kerneloutputdir>/.config > > # assuming you have this option set in your kernel ie the current kernel > # config saved in /proc/config.gz > > cd /usr/src/linux > > # assuming that /usr/src/linux is a soft link to your new kernel > # directory. > > make O=<kerneloutputdir> oldconfig > > # The "O=" makes sure that any kernel output goes to the directory under > # the permissions and control of the kernel builder user rather than in > # the kernel directory under root permissions. > > # If you want to make changes to the new kernel then: > > make O=<kerneleoutputdir> menuconfig > > You can then proceed with building kernel and modules. Yes, I know that > "make" without a command will automatically build both kernel image and > modules but I prefer to do things explicitly. > > make O=<kerneleoutputdir> bzImage > make O=<kerneleoutputdir> modules > > You can then install the new kernel and modules as root: > > make O=<kerneleoutputdir> modules_install > make O=<kerneleoutputdir> install > > You need to set the following environment variable: > > KBUILD_OUTPUT=<kerneloutputdir> > > This variable ensures that any emerged app can find the kernel output if > necessary. I've created a script in /etc/profile.d that automatically > keeps this environment variable up to date. Oh, remember to unset this > variable if you do *anything* requiring a busybox build (eg genkernel). > > An enjoyable side-effect of this system is that when you remove an > obselete kernel from your system using "emerge -C <oldkernelversion>", > everything will be removed because there are no changes, no files added > to those portage added kernel directory. > > The kernel builder user does nothing but build new kernels. This user's > home directory is a hierarchy containing current kernel builds. > > I've been using this system for years now, on all my gentoo systems. It > is second nature. Of course, the .bash_history of the kernel builder > user is *very* useful for quickly doing all this from the command line. > > I used to have a script to automate all this, but it is just as easy to > do from the command line.
What is the benefit of this approach vis a vis su to root first as the gentoo handbook suggests? -- Regards, Mick
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