FLAME____ Why is the kernel source not included

[Ken Johanson]

Thanks very much for the script. Unfortunately your kindness was tainted 
by personal insult, and bluntly stating that this is 'difficult' for me 
(without knowing of course), and innuendo over new users or users who 
come from another distro and have the same complaint. If you feel this 
accomplished anything at all, so be it.

Here is the procedure I use when a source package has to be retrieved 
manually (note, though I never presume that other users --new or not 
--should do it this exact way nor that they should already have the 
knowledge of the reasons). And I wont prescribe any specific methods - 
this is more generic to any distro, and not even just the kernel).

-determine the binary's running version (typically, but not always, 
uname -r for the kernel)
-select a trusted download site from the mirror list
-download the source (your script, Chris)
-unpack the file (rpm, bzip, etc)
-optionally verify integrity by mdsum and possibly signature, or diff 
against kernel.org (for the extra precautions / curious)
-if there are dependencies, grab those (network or disk) noting version. 
dependencies are reported at build time, or sometimes in the case or rpm 
install (ala fedora's specific qt and gtk kernel.rpm dependencies)

The above happens to be all done automatically by distro installers and 
add/remove apps (and some people consider this to be much more straight 
forward and less error prone, ala dependencies handling). If we have 
downloaded or copied someone else's src rpm distro discs, we're already 
set and the above procedure isnt nec.

When updates are needed, some typical distro-neutral ways are to use 
downloaded patch /diff files or cvs updates. This avoids having 
downloading the entire tree for each patch (which is typical for kernel 
rpms).


Now, I've been using this pretty generic procedure for about 6 or 7 
years (redhat 6 I think). For you to have found a post that I've made 
claiming this is difficult -- for me -- as you claim -- will earn your a 
check for a cool $20 - but if you never once heard (after _reading_ this 
thread) me state that the manual download procedure poses an 
'inconvenience' problem for new users - or is 'inconvenient' for users 
without network access or the src distros, I will have no room to preach 
on this thread :-)

Take care Chris!!!!

Chris Adams wrote:
> Once upon a time, Ken Johanson <fedora at kensystem.com> said:
> <a lot of stoopid stuff>
> 
> You keep claiming you have to download hundreds of megabytes of SRPMS to
> get the kernel, which is wrong.  You only need to download the specific
> SRPM you want.  Then you complained it is hard to find (which is frankly
> even stoopider; if you can't match a version you probably don't have any
> use for the source).
> 
> Anyway, to help you find the kernel matching the running kernel, since
> this is such a difficult task for you, try this script.
> 
> ************************************************************************
> #!/bin/bash
> 
> # set this to your favorite mirror top-level Fedora Core directory
> base=ftp://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core
> 
> pkg=kernel
> ver=`uname -r`
> if [ "$ver" != "${ver%smp}" ]; then
> 	pkg=kernel-smp
> 	ver="${ver%smp}"
> fi
> srpm=`rpm -q --qf '%{SOURCERPM}' $pkg-$ver`
> 
> fver=`rpm -q --qf '%{VERSION}' fedora-release`
> urls="$fver updates/$fver updates/testing/$fver development"
> 
> gotit=0
> for url in $urls; do
> 	echo "Checking $base/$url/SRPMS/$srpm"
> 	wget "$base/$url/SRPMS/$srpm"
> 	if [ $? = 0 ]; then
> 		gotit=1
> 		break
> 	fi
> 	echo
> done
> if [ $gotit = 0 ]; then
> 	echo "Couldn't find matching kernel source" 1>&2
> 	exit 1
> fi
> echo "Kernel source for running kernel is in $srpm"
> ************************************************************************
>