linux-image package /boot/config file not re-usable for a compilation of linux-source package

["David McGiven" <david.mcgiven@fusemail.com>]

Dear Debian users,

I'm using Debian Sarge in one of my machines. I wanted to install a newer
kernel (Sarge comes with 2.6.8).

Instead of using the kernel.org vanilla kernel source package, I decided
that using the debian source package from testing would be better.

I downloaded it from :
http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/linux-source-2.6.15

I installed it and it drops a file in /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.15.tar.bz2

I extracted it. Then instead of configuring it, I wanted to be it the
debian way.

I then downloaded the debian binary package from testing from :
http://packages.debian.org/testing/base/linux-image-2.6.15-1-686-smp

I do this just to take the .config file and be able to do a make oldconfig
afterwards.

I extracted the contents of linux-image-2.6.15-1-686-smp_2.6.15-8_i386.deb

dpkg-deb -x linux-image-2.6.15-1-686-smp_2.6.15-8_i386.deb /tmp

I copied the config file to the source directory

cp /tmp/boot/config-2.6.15-1-686-smp /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.15

cd /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.15

make oldconfig

And now it asks me for HEAPS of questions.

How is this possible ? The config file that comes with the binary package
is supposed to be from the same version as the kernel source package. Why
it asks those questions about old and new config parameters then ?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

David McGiven,
CTO