Re: [RFC] Removing sys-kernel/vanilla-kernel

Sam James <[email protected]> Tue, 02 Jun 2026 18:48:00 +0100
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.gentoo.devel
Organization	Gentoo
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
"Yuan Liao (Leo)" <[email protected]> writes:

> On Tue, Jun 2, 2026 at 10:04 AM Sam James <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> "Yuan Liao (Leo)" <[email protected]> writes:
>>
>> The blocker is with the default config. If you use savedconfig and
>> customise the name, it's fine.
>
> I just looked at gentoo-kernel{-bin}-7.0.11.ebuild, and the blockers
> are not conditioned on USE=savedconfig:
>
> # gentoo-kernel-7.0.11.ebuild
> RDEPEND="
>     !sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel-bin:${SLOT}
> "
>
> # gentoo-kernel-bin-7.0.11.ebuild
> RDEPEND="
>     !sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel:${SLOT}
> "
>

Ah, sorry, I was sure it was (maybe it even was at some point)?

> (I am traveling now, so I don't have the convenience to test merging
> those ebuilds and can only reason about them by looking at the code at
> the moment.)
>
> Even if savedconfig would make the blockers ineffective, I prefer to
> use /etc/kernel/config.d [1] instead of savedconfig to customize
> distribution kernels.  This way, when there's a new mainline kernel
> version (e.g. 7.1 for the purpose of discussion), I can use the
> Distribution Kernel Project's 7.1 config + my own config.d overrides,
> which would be more up-to-date than my old 7.0 savedconfig.
>
> [1]: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Distribution_Kernel#Using_.2Fetc.2Fkernel.2Fconfig.d
>
>> Is there a particular reason? In Gentoo, we've never done extensive
>> patching of the kernel, which we see as a feature. It's only a small set
>> of config options, sometimes a few backports, and maybe one or two other
>> small things.
>>
>> If you really want to duplicate that work, feel free, but why do you
>> then need a package for it?
>
> Until the recent wave of CVEs, I had been happy with the upstream
> kernel sources and had rarely patched them.  Now, the upstream has
> delayed merging some critical fixes into stable releases.  That's why
> I looked into switching to gentoo-kernel.  However, I would like to
> use a distribution kernel that doesn't conflict with
> gentoo-kernel-bin, and as I understand it now, vanilla-kernel is the
> only package meeting this criterion.

Thanks for explaining.

>
> Thanks,
> Leo3418
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