> > > > > > > At home I installed Mandrake 8.1. Because I have hardware that doesnt > > > work fine out of the box I tried to build my own kernel. > > > > > > The problem is that installing the new kernel with different config > > > overwrites modules and the kernel from the distro cant load any > > > modules anymore. > > > > > > > This does not (erm ... should not) happen unless you modify > > configuration in a way that changes some definitions (look how kernel > > mkversion works). Simple example is to disable devfs. > I probably will, some day. But its what are distributions for: you > dont have to look how everything works. > If I wanted to know how they all work I would start with slackware 4 > base disks and install anything I might need from sources ;-)
Are you sure you past to right list? This list is devoted to developing and testing. It presumes some knowledge about how things work (at least things you write about). > > > > > I'd suggest to add some suffix to the kernel version in the makefile > > to > > > avoid this problem. It can be removed by people who know what they are > > doing > > > anyway. > > > ie the built kernel version would be something like 2.4.8-34.1mdksrc > > > > > > > People who know what they are doing know that they have to change > > version string when they make incompatible changes. > Or that they can change it back when their changes are 'compatible'. > > > > I runned into this with original Linus kernel already. I just wanted to > know how kernel-source compilation works out of the box. > If people wanted only compatible changes they would not have to > recompile, would they? ;-) > Anyway how do I tell if my change is compatible? The make doesnt write > anywhere 'Changes to your kernel configuration may render your modules > unusable for the your old kernel'. > You expect too much from poor computer. In short - if you do no changes everything works (if not it is a bug. Do you imply that?) If you want to make changes, you should not install in the same place as distributed kernel. I do not see any problem here. Distributed kernel sources are for distributed kernel. If you change your kernel you get different one and you should not mix them. -andrej
