building vmmon
Michael Kearey
mutk at iprimus.com.au
Wed Mar 24 22:40:24 UTC 2004
Ben Rosengart wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 24, 2004 at 04:30:09PM -0500, Matthew Saltzman wrote:
>
>>(1) You want the kernel-source RPM, not the kernel SRPM.
>>(2) Update your kernel and get the matching kernel-source RPM.
>>
>>$ rpm -q kernel kernel-source
>>kernel-2.4.22-1.2174.nptl
>>kernel-source-2.4.22-1.2174.nptl
>
>
> Thank you, and thanks to all who answered.
>
> I got some funny looks from coworkers when I exclaimed that we
> needed a source rpm, not a src rpm.
That's because they don't understand what a src.rpm is and what a
source.rpm is.
The kernel-<blah>.src.rpm is by convention the rpm from which various
kernel-<blah>.rpm's are built. A src.rpm contains sources, spec file
and patches. Remember rpm is as much a build management as a package
management system..
Look in 'rpm -qpl kernel-<blah>.src.rpm ' It contains files that are
placed in BUILD SPEC, and SRC etc.. when you rpm -i the .src.rpm
file. (Read info at www.rpm.org for more )
The kernel-<blah>.src.rpm contains a kernel.spec file and kernel
config files, a pristine tar ball of the kernel source, plus lots of
patches that are applied to the pristine kernel tar ball during the
rpmbuild process.
During the kernel-<blah>.src.rpm rpmbuild process, an rpm called
kernel-source-<blah>.rpm is usually created. It contains a fully
patched 'source tree' that matches exactly the kernel-<blah>.rpm
packages for the various kernels that are built ..
In summary, kernel-<blah>.src.rpm contains an un-patched kernel tar
ball, and patches to build kernel rpms and kernel-source rpm. The
kernel-source rpm contains a patched kernel source tree that matches
the kernel rpms built from the src.rpm package.
The purpose of kernel-source rpm ? Just in case applications (Like
VMware) need to access a fully patched source tree that matches your
currently running kernel - to build kernel modules for example. Also,
custom kernels can be built by hand , outside the rpm build management
system, by installing the kernel-source rpm and doing the conventional
kernel build sequence of commands. That saves you the effort of
getting the pristine kernel.org tar ball, applying the multitude of
patches that Fedora 2.4 kernel has by hand..
Cheers,
Michael
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