Re: [Xen-users] Building Xen Linux on SuSE 9.3

[Robbie Dinn <robbie@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nick Couchman wrote:
> Yeah - I have both the kernel-source and kernel-xen packages installed.  The 
> kernel builds fine, for the most part, right up until the .tmp_vmlinux1 where it 
> fails with those errors.
I didn't explain myself very well.

There are 'source' RPM's and 'binary' RPM's.

I believe you are trying to build a xen kernel from the source tree that 
comes with the kernel-source-{2.6.11.4-20a,2.6.11.4-21.8}.i586.rpm
'binary' RPM. That does not work. That source tree is just for building
the kernel-default-{2.6.11.4-20a,2.6.11.4-21.8}.i586.rpm 'binary' RPM.

In an ideal world you would be able to build all the different kernel
architecture from the source one tree, but in practice that is not the case.

Instead you have to start with the 'source' RPM
( kernel-source-{version}.src.rpm ), using the appropriate spec file
for the architecture you want to build (i386 xen in your case?).

Background...

If you look at your installation media (CDROM, DVD, FTP mirror site)
there is a binary RPM in ./suse/i586/kernel-source-2.6.11.4-20a.i586.rpm

That RPM is a 'binary' RPM, that happens to contain just the kernel
sources. Specifically these are kernel sources that were used to build
the kernel-default-2.6.11.4-20a.i586.rpm 'binary' RPM

Note how these RPM's both end in '.i586.rpm'.

Both these binary RPM's were created from a 'source' RPM found in
./suse/src/kernel-source-2.6.11.4-20a.src.rpm

This source RPM contains kernel.org kernel, plus architecture
specific patches (xen, uml, ppc, s390, itanic), plus architecture
independant fixes, plus build instructions (spec files, scripts,
Makefile).

This is all described in much more detail and more accurately than I
have done in the documentation found in
 /usr/share/doc/pakages/kernel-source/README.SUSE

One thing that the above documentation file does not mention is
that kernel-source-{version}.src.rpm file alone is not sufficient.
You also need a kernel-source-{arch}-{version}.nosrc.rpm file too.
(except when you are building the kernel-default).

If you want to build the kernel-xen-2.6.11.4-21.9 binary RPM,
you need to fetch:

ftp://your.suse.mirror/pub/suse/i386/update/9.3/rpm/src/kernel-source-2.6.11.4-21.9.src.rpm

ftp://your.suse.mirror/pub/suse/i386/update/9.3/rpm/src/kernel-xen-2.6.11.4-21.9.nosrc.rpm

Read up on 'man rpm' and 'man rpmbuild' for installing and building
RPM files.

It will be difficult to build 2.6.11.4-21.8 because that is now gone
from the suse site and its mirrors.

If you want to use a SuSE kernel and xen 3.0, then you will have to
use the source RPM's (or binaries) that Kurt Garloff distibutes.
His page is
  http://www.suse.de/~garloff/linux/xen/

and follow the link that reads 'SUSE Linux 10.0 RPMs'
I haven't tried running a SuSE 10.0 kernel with a SuSE 9.3 install
though. It may work.

Alternatively, you could use the kernel source that comes from the
xensource.com or www.cl.cam.ac.uk sites. That might be much less effort
too. You only really need to bother with the SuSE sources if you
want a kernel that is as close as possible to something that SuSE ships.

_______________________________________________
Xen-users mailing list
Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users