A Gentoo Portage Overlay which contains an enhanced kernel-2.eclass and some tools.
The aim of this overlay is to support automatically building, upgrading, installing, and removing kernel packages using only emerge where possible.
This overlay includes 3 new things to be aware of:
- USE Flags
- make.conf options
- kernel-option-viewer tools
The eclass adds 3 new USE flags:
| USE Flag | Description |
|---|---|
| autobuild | imports your old .config and compile the new kernel |
| autoinstall | after compiling the kernel, also attempt to install it |
| autoremove | attempt to remove older kernel sources |
The eclass also allows for several new options in your make.conf:
- KERNEL_OPTION_VIEWER: The viewer command, which shows new kernel options. This should run an interactive background process (pop up an xterm, start a new screen window, or even openvt). The first argument to this command is the full path to a file containing a list of new kernel options (since the previous version) which need configuring. Example:
KERNEL_OPTION_VIEWER="/usr/local/kernel-autobuild-portage/sys-kernel/kernel-option-viewer/files/kernel_option_viewer.sh"
- KERNEL_CONFIG_METHOD This selects the method for configuring the kernel. Valid options are: xconfig, gconfig, menuconfig, nconfig, config Example:
KERNEL_CONFIG_METHOD="xconfig"
- KERNEL_POST_INSTALL A command to run after successfully installing the compiled kernel. This generally is a script which updates the boot loader (lilo, grub-mkconfig, boot-update, etc.) On Funtoo, this is usually /sbin/boot-update On Gentoo, this might be some variation of grub-mkconfig An empty string indicates that nothing should be run.
KERNEL_POST_INSTALL="/sbin/boot-update"
This tool allows you to easily detect new kernel options that were not available in the old .config file. This reduces the manual effort of upgrading your kernel to just a matter of looking at those new options, configuring them, and allowing the build/install system to handle the redundant details of the install.
The script offers 2 forms of output:
- text - This is a tab-indented list of kernel options as they are named in the menu-based configuration tools (such as "make menuconfig"). This makes it easier to find the new options to configure them. This mode offers basic functionality to text-only environments without access to higher level tools. This is generally intended as a last resort for when HTML output is not available.
- html - This is a more functional and visually helpful version of the kernel options listed in text mode. This provides a temporary HTML file listing the config options as they appear in menu-based configuration tools (such as "make menuconfig"). the nicely indented list shows the same hierarchy as configuration tools and allows you to click an option to grey it out and hide any sub-items in a list. This makes it act as an interactive checklist when going through configuration of a kernel.