What the hell is going on? (patching)

[growse]

<noob>

I get a patch file, in this case it's the nitro4 patch bzip2. I decompress it, and then I do:

patch -p1 < /usr/src/patch-2.6.9-nitro4

It then starts saying things like "Shall I assume -R [n]" and "Should I patch this anyway [n]"?

What do I answer?

If I do the default "no" and "no", the kernel compile fails with:

kernel/sysctl.c:658: error: `KERN_INTERACTIVE' undeclared here (not in a function)
kernel/sysctl.c:658: error: initializer element is not constant
kernel/sysctl.c:658: error: (near initialization for `kern_table[33].ctl_name')
kernel/sysctl.c:664: error: initializer element is not constant
kernel/sysctl.c:664: error: (near initialization for `kern_table[33]')

ARGH!

</noob>
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Getting there....

[blueworm]

You have to patch against the correct kernel source.
Most kernel patches are meant to be patched against the vanilla kernel.

[sobers_2002]

its best to get the ebuild and let it do the job
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