I've been playing around with different kernel configurations, and I've managed to compile the kernel in such a way that my installation is broken. The unfortunate thing is that I wasn't smart enough to backup the old configuration file, so I don't have a working kernel to roll back to. My question is, where can I find the kernel config file that the installtion CD uses so I can use that one instead??
The kernels are in the isolinux directory.
What I would do if I were you would be to chroot into your Gentoo system and open the handbook to the point where you install a kernel and follow those directions.
Thanks for the reply budman.
I found out that I hadn't just screwed up by compiling my kernel wrong but I also made the mistake of running etc-update without paying attention to what it was updating. After this I decided it would be better to just reinstall, so I've spent the day doing that, and have just got it back up and running!
How do you know which config files to let etc-update update, and which files to protect??
Look through the list it gives you and check the files that you have manually altered. Keep your versions of these; it is almost always going to be safe to overwrite the rest. A warning to this method: I assume that it is possible for the default of a config file to change from version to version, and while these changes will almost assuredly work, development ebuilds that were masked may be packaged with unstable config files. You may want to check those manually too.
Thanks Dachnaz.
The problem that I came across was that gdm seemed to have been completely re-configured when I rebooted, and it would only let me use fvwm. When I was going through each file I didn't actually see any that I had changed manually, so I just chose to overwrite them all. I suppose I could have figured out which config files had screwed up gdm, but I was so frustrated that everything seemed to be going wrong at once I decided to use my saturday to re-install!
Everything is back up and running the way I want it now, and there doesn't seem to be any complaints about updating configuration files any more!!!
Cheers gents!
When you do etc-update, select -3.
I prettty much let it overwrite them all with the exception of xorg.conf.
You should be able to say "y" to all of those.
If you use the -3 option, the trivial files will be taken care of.
You might want to review what those files look like before just to make sure.
On second thought,
The cron.weekly file may be altered to something you don't want.
This is really weird, I am replying to the thread posted below this one.
So now it's complaining that I update some config files and I don't wanna screw up (I worked hard yesterday!!!). Here's the output of etc-update,Now none of those files look like anything I've changed manually, but is there anything there you think shouldn't be changed??Code:tux ~ # etc-update
Scanning Configuration files...
The following is the list of files which need updating, each
configuration file is followed by a list of possible replacement files.
1) /etc/udev/rules.d/50-udev.rules
/etc/udev/rules.d/._cfg0000_50-udev.rules
2) /etc/cron.weekly/makewhatis
/etc/cron.weekly/._cfg0000_makewhatis
3) /etc/ssh/moduli
/etc/ssh/._cfg0000_moduli
4) /etc/securetty
/etc/._cfg0000_securetty
5) /etc/init.d/sshd
/etc/init.d/._cfg0000_sshd
6) /etc/pam.d/sshd
/etc/pam.d/._cfg0000_sshd
7) /etc/pam.d/system-auth
/etc/pam.d/._cfg0000_system-auth
8) /etc/udev/udev.conf
/etc/udev/._cfg0000_udev.conf
I appreciate your help guys! I'd be lost without you!