[nzlug] Kernels (again) and patching

[Edwin Flores]

On 12/3/07, Daniel Lawson <daniel at meta.net.nz> wrote:
>
> > Sorry - my briefness surprises even me. It's a Linux kernel, compiled
> > and configured by someone else. I'm trying to find out if he's
> > compiled any functionality into the kernel which isn't part of the
> > standard kernel. From what I can tell so far, it's probably a vanilla
> > kernel based upon the configuration file - it's got a lot less options
> > in there than the stock standard Debian kernel from around the same
> > sort of time.
>
> I believe that if you complete a kernel configuration, any .config
> options that don't correspond to the current tree are removed.
> So, if you run 'make oldconfig', then compare the current .config with
> your original config file, it should show the differences.
> I haven't tested this though, but you can test it pretty easily by
> adding a bogus option just in case.

Also, the .config the kernel was compiled with might be found at
/proc/config.gz - I'm not sure if this is set in the vanilla kernel.