Manual install of new kernel ???

[bigjohn]

I've just done my daily

emerge -uD world

and it's emerged the latest kernel version (2.6.11-gentoo-r9).

I'd like to have a go at compiling this manually. I've found an excellent utility called xconfig, so that if I do

make xconfig

I get a nice GUI facility that also tells me what the various choices are.

My question is, that as I only have a limited amount of knowledge of my hardware, can I presume that if I haven't heard of a certain technology, it's probable that I won't need to select it for kernel or module support ??

As my system is nothing fancy i.e. Normal ATA/Eide hard drive, network card, USB 1.1 ports, plus the usuals like pentium 4, a SBLive! 5.1 digital card, nvidia graphics card, DVDrom, CDRW etc etc.

regards

John

[jaboua]

I always use the menuconfig, and at least there it's a help option which explains what the option will do.

[Cabhan]

If you select an option, it should display the help in the xconfig. It will give you an overview, and most will give you a suggestion.

I also prefer menuconfig, as it's cleaner for me, but to each his own.


Just remember that once you update, change the /usr/src/linux symlink to the new sources, and re-emerge any modules.