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New HOWTO: The Linux Kernel HOWTO - page 7

Table of Contents

  • April 2, 2001
  6.  Patching the kernel

  6.1.  Applying a patch

  Incremental upgrades of the kernel are distributed as patches. For
  example, if you have version 1.1.45, and you notice that there's a
  `patch46.gz' out there for it, it means you can upgrade to version
  1.1.46 through application of the patch. You might want to make a
  backup of the source tree first (`make clean' and then `cd /usr/src;
  tar zcvf old-tree.tar.gz linux' will make a compressed tar archive for
  you.).

  So, continuing with the example above, let's suppose that you have
  `patch46.gz' in /usr/src. cd to /usr/src  and do a `zcat patch46.gz |
  patch -p0' (or `patch -p0 

	




< patch46' if the patch isn't compressed).
  You'll see things whizz by (or flutter by, if your system is that
  slow) telling you that it is trying to apply hunks, and whether it
  succeeds or not. Usually, this action goes by too quickly for you to
  read, and you're not too sure whether it worked or not, so you might
  want to use the -s flag to patch, which tells patch to only report
  error messages (you don't get as much of the ``hey, my computer is
  actually doing something for a change!'' feeling, but you may prefer
  this..). To look for parts which might not have gone smoothly, cd to
  /usr/src/linux  and look for files with a .rej extension. Some
  versions of patch (older versions which may have been compiled with on
  an inferior filesystem) leave the rejects with a # extension. You can
  use `find' to look for you;

      find .  -name '*.rej' -print

  prints all files who live in the current directory or any subdirecto�
  ries with a .rej extension to the standard output.

  If everything went right, do a `make clean', `config', and `dep' as
  described in sections 3 and 4.

  There are quite a few options to the patch command. As mentioned
  above, patch -s will suppress all messages except the errors. If you
  keep your kernel source in some other place than /usr/src/linux, patch
  -p1 (in that directory) will patch things cleanly. Other patch options
  are well-documented in the manual page.

  6.2.  If something goes wrong

  (Note: this section refers mostly to quite old kernels)

  The most frequent problem that used to arise was when a patch modified
  a file called `config.in' and it didn't look quite right, because you
  changed the options to suit your machine. This has been taken care of,
  but one still might encounter it with an older release.  To fix it,
  look at the config.in.rej  file, and see what remains of the original
  patch.  The changes will typically be marked with `+' and `-' at the
  beginning of the line. Look at the lines surrounding it, and remember
  if they were set to `y' or `n'. Now, edit config.in, and change `y' to
  `n' and `n' to `y' when appropriate. Do a

      patch -p0 < config.in.rej

  and if it reports that it succeeded (no fails), then you can continue
  on with a configuration and compilation. The config.in.rej file will
  remain, but you can get delete it.

  If you encounter further problems, you might have installed a patch
  out of order. If patch says `previously applied patch detected: Assume
  -R?', you are probably trying to apply a patch which is below your
  current version number; if you answer `y', it will attempt to degrade
  your source, and will most likely fail; thus, you will need to get a
  whole new source tree (which might not have been such a bad idea in
  the first place).

  To back out (unapply) a patch, use `patch -R' on the original patch.

  The best thing to do when patches really turn out wrong is to start
  over again with a clean, out-of-the-box source tree (for example, from
  one of the linux-x.y.z.tar.gz  files), and start again.

  6.3.  Getting rid of the .orig files

  After just a few patches, the .orig  files will start to pile up. For
  example, one 1.1.51 tree I had was once last cleaned out at 1.1.48.
  Removing the .orig files saved over a half a meg.

      find .  -name '*.orig' -exec rm -f {} ';'

  will take care of it for you. Versions of patch which use # for
  rejects use a tilde instead of .orig.

  There are better ways to get rid of the .orig files, which depend on
  GNU xargs:

      find .  -name '*.orig' | xargs rm

  or the ``quite secure but a little more verbose'' method:

      find . -name '*.orig' -print0 | xargs --null rm --

  6.4.  Other patches

  There are other patches (I'll call them ``nonstandard'') than the ones
  Linus distributes. If you apply these, Linus' patches may not work
  correctly and you'll have to either back them out, fix the source or
  the patch, install a new source tree, or a combination of the above.
  This can become very frustrating, so if you do not want to modify the
  source (with the possibility of a very bad outcome), back out the
  nonstandard patches before applying Linus', or just install a new
  tree. Then, you can see if the nonstandard patches still work. If they
  don't, you are either stuck with an old kernel, playing with the patch
  or source to get it to work, or waiting (possibly begging) for a new
  version of the patch to come out.

  How common are the patches not in the standard distribution? You will
  probably hear of them. I used to use the noblink patch for my virtual
  consoles because I hate blinking cursors (This patch is (or at least
  was) frequently updated for new kernel releases.). With most newer
  device drivers being developed as loadable modules, though, the
  frequecy of ``nonstandard'' patches is decreasing significantly.
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