Make hardlinking kernel-devel optional

[Dave Jones]

On Wed, Feb 01, 2006 at 12:13:38AM +0100, Paul Wouters wrote:
 > On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Dave Jones wrote:
 > 
 > >  > I't like to request to make the hardlink stage kernel-devel does on every
 > >  > install optional. It takes a damn lot of time on my not-too-fast machines,
 > >  > I do not exactly care about the saved disk space, and given the rate of
 > >  > kernel changes in rawhide there are a lot of wasted CPU cycles there.
 > >
 > > only if you have a huge number of kernels installed, which shouldn't be the case.
 > 
 > The only gain for hardlinks *is* when you have a lot of kernels installed.

it's a space gain as soon as you've >1 installed.

 > Also,
 > I don't think yum uninstalls any kernels

it does with rawhide kernels. seen installonlyn plugin.

 > , so a machine which is updated reguarly
 > can end up with a lot of kernels. Especially if smp and up kernels are present.

rawhide only installs the one thats needed.

 > But my problem i guess is mostly in that I've had a few incompletele kernel
 > trees and couldn't compile from them anymore.

Are you trying to compile a kernel from a kernel-devel tree ?
That won't work, nor should it. That's why there's a .src.rpm

 > The process is terribly slow on older hardware though.
 > 
 > I would happy if the kernel rpms checked for the hardlinks rpm and skipped it
 > when the rpm isnt installed.

It does. However we have a Prereq: /usr/sbin/hardlink in the spec too.
I'll nuke that, and it'll then allow you to rpm -e hardlink, and things should
make everyone happy.

		Dave