Betterer error message

1 files changed, 9 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/paludis/util/pipe.cc b/paludis/util/pipe.cc
index fdb42f919..4538cf700 100644
--- a/paludis/util/pipe.cc
+++ b/paludis/util/pipe.cc
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 /* vim: set sw=4 sts=4 et foldmethod=syntax : */
 
 /*
- * Copyright (c) 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010 Ciaran McCreesh
+ * Copyright (c) 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 Ciaran McCreesh
  * Copyright (c) 2009 David Leverton
  *
  * This file is part of the Paludis package manager. Paludis is free software;
@@ -21,8 +21,10 @@
 #include "pipe.hh"
 #include <paludis/util/exception.hh>
 #include <paludis/util/log.hh>
+#include <cstring>
 #include <unistd.h>
 #include <fcntl.h>
+#include <errno.h>
 
 using namespace paludis;
 
@@ -42,7 +44,12 @@ Pipe::Pipe(const bool close_exec)
     /* if your os doesn't have pipe2, you'll need to make this use a big nasty
      * global mutex along with everything that calls fork(). */
     if (-1 == pipe2(_fds, close_exec ? O_CLOEXEC : 0))
-        throw InternalError(PALUDIS_HERE, "pipe(2) failed");
+    {
+        if (errno == ENOSYS)
+            throw InternalError(PALUDIS_HERE, "pipe(2) failed with ENOSYS. Is your kernel older than your linux-headers?");
+        else
+            throw InternalError(PALUDIS_HERE, "pipe(2) failed with " + stringify(strerror(errno)));
+    }
 }
 
 Pipe::~Pipe()