Mandriva Kernel Compile Special Instructions



Due to the way that Mandriva generates multiple versions of the kernel
(uniprocessor, smp, enterprise, boot, secure), recompiling the kernel
from the kernel source installed in /usr/src/linux *MUST* be preceded 
by one step:

    make mrproper

This is roughly equivalent to "make distclean", but not quite.  The
best explanation of why this scenario exists appeared in the Cooker
Mailing List by Andrej Borsenkow:

    PLEASE do not forget - you must not need to configure your kernel 
    before you compile EXTERNAL module (as example, nVidia). PLEASE 
    remember that Mandriva has 5 (five!) kernel flavours and you can 
    compile external modules for any of them WITHOUT RECONFIGURATION 
    IN BETWEEN. PLEASE look into this "regenrated files" in clean 
    kernel-source and after you have reconfigured your kernel.

To summarize, the kernel source tree is left in a state such that you 
compile custom kernel modules for any of the five versions of the
kernel without having to do anything special.  One of the side effects
of this is that if you want to start a compile from scratch, you must
remove various configuration files (as well as object files and 
binaries).  To do this, you *MUST* do the "make mrproper" first.

Regards, the Mandriva Team