[TriLUG] question about "make oldconfig"

[Daniel T. Chen]

On Sat, 3 Nov 2001, rpjday wrote:

>   i realize that the purpose of "make oldconfig" is to use an
> existing .config file so that you only have to answer questions
> about "newer" features in the kernel source you're working with.
> 
>   the question:  how exactly does the make know what is a new
> feature?  does it do a recursive traversal of the kernel source
> tree?  what is it looking for for comparison purposes?  just being
> nosey.

Look at /usr/src/linux/arch/$(ARCH)/config.in and
/usr/src/linux/scripts/Configure

It's essentially a series of boolean comparisons. Thank goodness it 
doesn't walk the kernel tree. =)

---
Dan Chen                 crimsun at email.unc.edu
GPG key: www.cs.unc.edu/~chenda/pubkey.gpg.asc