Rebuilding Kernel

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On 2006-08-22 08:43, beno <zope at 2012.vi> wrote:
>Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
>> Don't edit GENERIC.  It's very rarely a good idea.  If you spend
>> some time to fine tune GENERIC to your own particular setup,
>> matching your own preferences, you may be surprised in a very bad
>> way after the next CVSup run, when all your local modifications are
>> blown away by CVSup as it updates your 'GENERIC' configuration to
>> the official GENERIC status.
>>
>> It is a *FAR* better idea to copy GENERIC and edit a copy.  Most
>> of the time I even go as far as copying GENERIC _outside_ of the
>> `/usr/src' tree, i.e. in `/root/kernconf/LOCAL' and symlink that
>> file inside the source tree, i.e. at `/usr/src/sys/i386/conf'.
>
> Great. I added that to my script and copied over GENERIC to a
> separate folder, as per your idea. Now, since I had already rebuilt
> the kernel, I presume I don't have to concern myself with this issue
> until the next time I do so, is that correct?

I'm not sure what "that" refers to (I am assuming it refers to "this
issue"), but I don't know what the *real* issue was.

You can definitely keep the kernel configuration file anywhere you
want.

You *have* to follow the documented, "buildworld and then buildkernel"
process if you are upgrading from one major release branch (5.X) to a
newer branch (6.X).

You can save some time if you keep your /usr/obj tree around and run
only "buildkernel", but this costs in disk space.  Even in that case,
there are two sub-cases:

    - You have only tweaked minor options in your config file.  Then
      it may be safe to run:

	  # cd /usr/src
	  # make -DNO_CLEAN KERNCONF=LOCAL buildkernel

    - You have made significant changes to your kernel.  Then it may
      still be necessary to run "buildworld/buildkernel" (especially
      if one of the options you tweaked changes kernel internals, which
      may break programs that depend on these kernel internals).

For these reasons, if you have a moderately fast system, it is always
safer to run the full "buildworld/buildkernel" cycle.