Editing Menuconfig (section)

==Advantages over earlier versions==
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Despite being a simple design, <code>make menuconfig</code> offers considerable advantages to the question-and-answer-based configuration tool <code>make config</code>, the most notable being a basic search system and the ability to load and save files with filenames different from "<code>.config</code>". <code>make menuconfig</code> allows navigation forwards or backwards directly between features, rather than <code>make config</code>'s approach of listing every single option one by one, which requires pressing the {{keypress|enter}} key repeatedly to view all options.

If the user is satisfied with a previous <code>.config</code> file, using <code>make oldconfig</code> uses this previous file to answer all questions that it can, only interactively presenting the new features.  This is intended for a version upgrade, but may be appropriate at other times.

<code>make menuconfig</code> is a light load on system resources unlike <code>make xconfig</code> (uses [[Qt (framework)|Qt]] as of version 2.6.31.1, formerly [[Tk (software)|Tk]]) or <code>make gconfig</code>, which utilizes [[GTK+]]. Instead of editing the <code>.config</code> by hand, <code>make menuconfig</code> shows the descriptions of each feature (by pressing the "Help" button while on a menu option), and adds some (primitive in version 2.6.31.1) dependency checking.

The help information is distributed throughout the kernel source tree in the various files called Kconfig.

{{anchor|Requisites/Dependencies}}<!-- section heading from 2012-02 to 2016-02 -->