2.6.8-rc2 won't do a make (silent)oldconfig. To make sure i did not lose anything I recloned linux-2.6
commit 721d5dfe7e516954c501d5e9d0dfab379cf4241a
$ make O=/var/diskless/kernel/psion/ oldconfig
GEN /var/diskless/kernel/psion/Makefile
HOSTCC scripts/kconfig/zconf.tab.o
gcc: /var/diskless/kernel/linux-2.6/scripts/kconfig/zconf.tab.c: No such file or directory
gcc: no input files
make[2]: *** [scripts/kconfig/zconf.tab.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [oldconfig] Error 2
make: *** [sub-make] Error 2