How to use a kernel patch?

Question

hi, I am hoping someone can help me here, I am trying to patch my kernel to detect my trackpoint on my thinkpad using the patch from http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14970 but the patch seems to look for a drivers/input/mouse/psmouse-base.c which I don't seem to have(or can't find), anyone know how to solve this problem? I am applying the patch from my /usr/src/<kernel> directory, am I doing something wrong?
I used the commands
patch -p1 < psmouse-move-fsp-lower.patch
and
patch < psmouse-move-fsp-lower.patch
and I get the same results:
can't find file to patch at input line 24
Perhaps you used the wrong -p or --strip option?
The text leading up to this was:
|Input: pmouse - move Sentelic probe down the list
|
|From: Dmitry Torokhov <[email protected]>
|
|Sentelic probes confuse IBM trackpoints so they stop responding to
|TP_READ_ID command. See:
|
|    http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14970
|
|Let's move FSP detection lower so it is probed after trackpoint and
|others, just before we strat probing for Intellimouse Explorer.
|
|Signed-off-by: Dmitry Torokhov <[email protected]>
|---
|
| drivers/input/mouse/psmouse-base.c |   23 ++++++++++-------------
| 1 files changed, 10 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-)
|
|
|diff --git a/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse-base.c b/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse-base.c
|index cabf4e1..ccb9f08 100644
|--- a/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse-base.c
|+++ b/drivers/input/mouse/psmouse-base.c

Answer 1

I would suggest to run --dry-run on every patch applied. Safer.
aside of this
1) download kernel from www.kernel.org (or use abs)
2) unpack it in /usr/src/
3) cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.X
4) patch -p1 --dry-run < path_to_patch\psmouse-move-fsp-lower.patch (you can do this as user)
check for errors, above wil not actually apply patch but dry test it
if no errors run
5) patch -p1 < path_to_patch\psmouse-move-fsp-lower.patch
I tested your patch (dated 2010-01-12 06:04) and it applies cleanly, so obviously you are making some mistake. Try again. Hopefully it will work.
Note: I don't use Arch kernel, I don't even have it installed on my system (and miracuously it never broke). Whichever way you will build kernel is up to you.
Last edited by broch (2010-01-17 03:42:25)