[Techtalk] the finer points of kernel customization

[Mary]

On Mon, Mar 22, 2004, Carla Schroder wrote:
> And is it correct to say that you don't really patch your existing
> kernel, but create a new one using your old config?

Yes: it's rare in the Free Software world to patch an existing
*anything*, as in patching the running binary. You're almost always
patching the sources and building a new binary. Kernels are no
exception.

> And you can delete your old kernel once you're satisfied the new one
> works?

Yes.

As for the build sequence, you may want look at distro-specific build
processes: Debian for example has helper scripts that will build a
kernel into a .deb for you, which can be handy when you want to get rid
of the thing later. The tool is called kernel-package and its help files
will be in /usr/share/doc/kernel-package

I don't know the equivalents for other distros. Nor can I tell you if
your instructions are precisely correct, as I've been using
kernel-package for too long now!

-Mary