Re: .config in kernel source?

[Samuli Suonpaa <suonpaa@iki.fi>]

Martin F. Krafft <madduck@madduck.net> wrote:
> okay. so it's really just basic vanilla source (with patches
> applied)?  so the actual kernel data (not image) is in
> kernel-headers?

Kernel-source contains a tarball /usr/src/kernel-source-x.x.x.tar.bz2
which has everything you need to compile a kernel the traditional way
or make packages kernel-image, kernel-docs and kernel-headers.

Kernel-headers contains just the headers, the .h-files.

> what do you do if another piece of software needs both, headers and
> source, corresponding to the current kernel (e.g. vmware)? it isn't
> happy with just kernel-source (unconfigured), and it isn't happy
> with just kernel-headers (no source files). 

But vmware _is_ happy with kernel-headers. I have only kernel-image
and kernel-headers installed in my laptop and vmware modules compile
just fine. (At least vmmon.o and vmnet.o do.)

You do not need both packages. You either install kernel-source which
includes the source _and_ the headers (and docs) _or_ you install
kernel-image plus, if needed, kernel-headers.

I, for instance, do not have enough diskspace on my laptop to hold
kernel sources, I have all the sources in my other machine at which I
make packages kernel-image and kernel-headers to be installed on the
laptop.

Oh, and what comes to the subject of this message, the .config is
included in kernel-image also, as /boot/config-x.x.x.

Suonpää...