Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 12753
allow building partial package set from 2.2.16 kernel spec
Last modified: 2008-05-01 11:37:56 EDT
Kernel source package shipped by RH always produces all the components (smp kernels, boot kernels, pcmcia package, ibcs package and so on) on build stage. Building of one component is a long operation. But most users who builds kernel himself needs only particular configuration (e.g. only up-kernel for i686 without pcmcia and ibcs -- most common config I guess). Here is a patch for .spec file (against 2.2.16-1) to allow such separation. It introduces some variables (%defined at top) named as mk_XXX that are default to 1 (%define mk_smp 1). When changing those variables to 0, corresponding components are skipped from build process. One more thing I want here is to allow also easy building of kernel-headers and kernel-source "for i686 arch", i.e. so that only one target and one build will require to produce kernel-xxx-i686.rpm and kernel-source-xxx-i386.rpm. But this is not so easy with current rpm... And also, I tried to make easily configurable custom config and have a patch for this (to .spec also), but this is a bit ugly for moment. The idea is to allow definition of some variable (e.g. --define 'kerncustom someval') and in this case kernel-xxx-somevel.xxx.rpm will built using kernel-xxx-somevel.config files, not the original redhat kernel-xxx.config configs. Please apply (or review and apply) this patch -- it not breaks anything, it is clean and it is simple. This all will greatly simplify life for all people who needs custom kernel builds. Thank you.
Created attachment 620 [details] patch to kernel-2.2.16-1.spec file (already described)
Created attachment 982 [details] diff against 2.2.16-8
I see that at least BOOT/smp/enterprize kernels can be excluded now. Thank you. But pcmcia and ibcs still can't. Is this a principal position? It may be so, as kernels built without pcmcia/ibcs stuff will not be "compatible" with original redhat's ones (some modules will be omitted). If this is a cause, than Ok -- just confirm this and let's close this whole issue (still new). If not, here is another patch, against 2.2.16-24. What I really missed is that kernel is one of almost two packages that can't be build as non-root, and the only cause is ibcs devices. So, if ibcs stuff can be excluded, kernel will be buildable for non-root users. And also the changes I tried to made here triggered a bug in rpm -- it won't understand nested `%ifarch' and `%if %{var}' constructs.
Created attachment 4390 [details] diff against 2.2.16-24 to allow having buildibcs=0 and buildpcmcia=0
Michael can decide if this should be in the src rpm.
Closing at this point.