[Sussex] Good tip for recovering from catastrophe

[Steve Dobson]

Geoff/Matt and everyone else who is interested.

From: Geoff Teale 
> Steve wrote:
> ============
> > The error you're reporting here is a kernel build error and
> > not related to Gentoo (or any other distribution).  I've seen
> > them in my own builds,  you'll need to track down all the
> > correct flags to enable when building.
> 
> This is true.  However, DeadRat and other "user-friendly" 
> distros don't always use a kernel in the state you'd get
> it in if you downloaded it from http://www.kernel.org - is
> it possible that this could be making life more complex than
> it needs to be?

A good point and one I had forgotten.  That can be the trouble
when you run a pure distro like Gentoo or Debian - you forget
that some distros add there own "extensions" for commercial
reasons.  As Linus points out there is no "one" source of
Linux all are valid. [But some are more valid that others - Ed]
 
> It could of course just be down to kernel version.  Under 
> Gentoo I have similar problem using ALSA on a 2.4.19 kernel,
> but no such problems under 2.4.18.  I haven't been significantly
> bothered enough to work through that one yet.  My speakers are
> plugged into the headphone output on my DVD drive - in my mind
> this hack is "good enough for government work" or with my
> musician hat on "it's good enough for Jazz".

Yes, I've had similar experiences.  I put this down to bugs in the
build options being corrected.  I also think that if you're going
to report a bug it is polite to use the latest kernel version
(stable or devel), first to check that it hasn't already been fixed,
and second it make it easier for the kernel team to look into it.

<snip>

Steve