Somethings that really should be simple turn out to be very complicated for me :)
Like upgrading my Linux kernel. I never seem to get it right the first time. Here are my basic steps:

• gather an inventory of my hardware
• run make xconfig
• find all of my hardware in the menu's/forms/pulldowns this takes me forever
• build my kernel
• install modules
• update grub
• find out I missed something I needed (like acpi to shut down my Thinkpad etc etc)
• rinse... repeat

I know it can be better than this. But in truth I extract a small amount of enjoyment just by reading all the new options available in the kernel. I guess that is just my geek showing...

But, if at all possible I would love to skip my last step, the repeat stage. Or at least speed up this process. For this I need 2 things:

1. A reliable way to transfer my old configuration options.
2. A fast way of finding new options which have anything to do with my hardware or my interests

To these aims I am working on a new project. It is tentatively named "kccmp" for Kernel Config Compare.

Right now it is building using Qt 4 and has the following feature(s):

• Ability to compare 2 .config files
• Lists configuration options which are set differently. These are displayed in a tree rooted as "Differences".
• Lists configuration options which exist in the first .config file but not in the second .config file. These are displayed in a tree rooted as "Old".
• Lists configuration options which exist in the second .config file but not in the first .config file. These are displayed in a tree rooted as "New".

I would love to integrate this with the Kconfig information stored in the arch directories so I could display the help messages and also provide a search feature.

Let me know if you are interested in seeing this software in the wild and if you have any comments/suggestions.

Salem

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