Here's something for the consideration of the kernel source
maintainers.
I wanted to be able to compile several configurations separately
without having to save and restore .config files. So I made a separate
directory for each configuration and made a forest of symbolic links
using the nice script `lndir' from X11. In each directory I can do a
make config dep zImage without affecting others.
That's the theory. In practice, the Makefiles touch various .h files
during the build. No contents are actually changed. So this precludes
running more than one build at the same time, and more importantly,
being able to make the source tree R/O (e.g. on a CDROM, or
non-superusers compiling a kernel from sources they have no write
permission on).
Is there a solution I missed? I suppose I could make local copies of
the touched files, but this spoils the elegance of the lndir scheme,
which I use successfully to compile the same sources of many utilities
for different architectures without affecting the original sources. If
not, could some thought be made to using some other means of conveying
timestamps other than touching the original files?
Thanks, Ken