[clug] Reading a diff

Robert Edwards bob at cs.anu.edu.au
Sun Sep 6 17:44:29 MDT 2009


BAXTER,Adam wrote:
> Hi,
> Can someone point me in the direction of some instructions on how to read a diff like
> http://fit-pc2.com/download/ubuntu/dists/jaunty/source/linux_2.6.28-34.10.diff.gz
> 
> As far as I know it's adding drivers to the kernel, but I have no idea how to make it work with the .30 kernel, or exactly what the diff is doing.
> 
> Thanks,
> --Adam Baxter
> 
> Notice:
> 
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> 

If you open it with something like KCompare, you can "browse" the diff
file and see what changes it is making to each source file it touches.
Note that this .diff is intended to bring 2.6.28-34.9 up to 2.6.28-34.10
so it may not help you with a ".30" kernel (I am assuming that you mean
a 2.6.30 kernel).

Basically, diffs are really meant to be read by the "patch" command,
with some developers able to eye-ball a diff to get an idea of whether
or not it might break something, but you would need to be quite familiar
with the source tree to be able to do that.

Which part of the .diff are you mainly interested in?

Cheers,

Bob Edwards.


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