Bill,
I think maybe you have misunderstood what the make command actually
does.
I think you were attempting to roll your own kernel, and you were
calling 'make menuconfig' and suchlike, but with no luck. Probably getting a
"No rule to make menuconfig" or similar...
What 'make' actually does is read a file, usually called "makefile"
(note lowercase) which contains instructions on how to compile a particular
product. It specifies which compiler to use, what flags to pass to the
compiler, what the files to compile are, which files are dependent upon
other files and so forth. You could issue all of the these commands
yourself, but when you have, say, 3000 files to compile which all have to be
done together to cerate a fully linked kernel it's a major problem.
Makefiles were invented to take the tedium out of compiling large complex
programs like the linux kernel.
Anyway, make doesn't care what it's compiling, it just wants to know
HOW to compile it. Therefore, if you want to compile a new kernel, make must
be ale to see the makefile which defines the method of compiling that new
kernel. If you want to compile your own version of Konqueror, make must be
able to see the makefile which defines how to compile Konqueror and so on.
All you were doing wrong was telling make to make a target called
"menuconfig", but you weren't in the directory which contained the makefile
which defined HOW to build menuconfig.
In your post below you say that O'Reilly's "Running Linux" says the
subdirectory for make is something different. Do you mean that "Running
Linux" used a different directory than /usr/src/linux/ to compile a kernel
from?
Steve Flynn
NOP Data Migration Ops Analyst
* 01603 687386
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Cole and Virginia Morton [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 10:45 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: [newbie] Kernel Make Commands
Alex, thank you very much for your help. In fact, I was not sitting
in the correct directory as you politely pointed out in your note.
One point of confusion that I've had is how to reconcile differences
between distributions with regard to where pieces of the system are located.
I've have the O'Reilly Running Linux book which says that the subdirectory
for 'make' is something different; there are a lot of these distribution
differences that really get in the way of efficient learning. I've scouted
the on-line Mandrake documentation for a similar information about 'make',
but, if it is there, clearly I missed it and I apologize in advance for
doing so.
While I suppose the economics aren't yet with Mandrake, talking one
of the computer publishing houses into doing a Mandrake-Linux book [having
an author would be good too :-)] which points to these distribution
differences would be a really big help.
I really like the Mandrake product and approach to customers. I
hope that the company has a business plan that makes a profit for the
investors and keeps the company viable.
Bill
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