Subject: Kernel compilation and patching

From: Phil Norman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 10:51:52 +0000 (GMT)

Hi!

I'm a bit of a newbie to patching kernels.  I tried what I found in some 
file somewhere, which was the following:

Downloaded the linux kernel source (2.0.31) from Linus' site
Downloaded the latest armlinux patch
Dearchived the linux kernel source to /usr/src/linux
cd /usr/src
cat /home/phil/kernel_source/patch_2_0_31 | patch

This tried to create loads of files in /usr/src/ (when I tried patching 
as root it managed it, of course) called 'things.orig'.  I assume these 
are the 'unpatched' old versions.  However, when I tried to make the 
linux source, it said /arch/arm or something similar was missing, so I 
assume that it didn't recurse into directories properly.

Is what I tried above correct, and if it's not, what am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance,
Phil

P.S. Anyone know where I can get some nicely written info on ext2fs and 
how it works, since I'd rather like to write something in RiscOS which 
reads my ext2fs partition.  Otherwise I'll just read the kernel source 
to see how it works.

-- 
Phil Norman, mailing from Exeter Uni.
Programs available for download from my web page.
email:  [email-masked]
web:    http://newton.ex.ac.uk/general/ug/norman

---

From: Alan Cox <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 13:06:04 +0000 (GMT)

> cat /home/phil/kernel_source/patch_2_0_31 | patch

patch -p0 is the magic you want

> reads my ext2fs partition.  Otherwise I'll just read the kernel source 

Ted wrote a paper on it, and also libe2fs which is a library for working
with ext2. There are a set of ext2fs working tool for MacOS and sort of
now for SGI that are used by installers and give you "open/close/read/write"
type functionality.

Alan

---

From: Matthew Wilcox <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 1997 13:35:40 +0000 (GMT)

> cat /home/phil/kernel_source/patch_2_0_31 | patch

You need patch -p1 (as it says in the documentation distributed in the
kernel source).  BTW, you can leave the patch compressed and use zcat
to feed patch with.  Much more efficient ;-)

> However, when I tried to make the 

Did you `make config' first?

BTW, I've not tried it myself, but I hear `make menuconfig' misses loads
of options, so don't try that.

> reads my ext2fs partition.  Otherwise I'll just read the kernel source 

You can get a fair bit of documentation & other bits from
ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/Mirrors/tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/packages/ext2fs/
Don;t use the sunsite.unc mirror on doc, it's months out of date.