I am compiling svgalib on a linode Gentoo system. The package wants the source of my currently running kernel. I thought I could just emerge the source, but then it complains about not having a valide .config file that the kernel source was compiled with.

Any quick way around this? I am on the 2.6 linode kernel. I guess I just need the proper source version, but also the .config file it was build with.

Any ideas?

Why are you compiling it? svgalib uses direct access to the graphics card memory to do it's drawing, as you have access only though an ssh session you won't be able to use it.

One option would simply be to type

cd /usr/src/linux
make menuconfig

exit and save the config. This will give you a default set of options, but I doubt it'll do what you want...

HTH,
Andrew

I don't know whether you can use svgalib on a linode, but you can find the .config file with which your linode's kernel was built at:
http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1796
(or the equivalent post for your linode's kernel version)

You are right! I don't really need that. I usually have an update script for Gentoo that tells me what has been updated and needs to be compiled. I figured it was a dependency to something I had intentionally installed, but when I looked in my world file, there it was. I removed it, so I guess I won't worry about it.

At one time I used VNC and fluxbox on this computer. Maybe that was needed for that? I'm not sure, but it is a non issue now...

Thanks!!

Ok, i figured it out. "links" console web browser was wanting it as a dependency. Don't know why, but I put the flag "-svga" in my make.conf, and now it doesn't try to emerge it.