[Techtalk] Kernel Building (was Re: Simply Hardware 3B)

[Akkana]

hobbit at aloss.ukuu.org.uk writes:
> _If you are on Red Hat_, you can skip a lot of this. You can do:
> 
>     make menuconfig (or xconfig, or config)
>     make rpm
> 
> That's almost it. It does the make dep, bzImage, modules etc for you. 

Does it start with a clean or mrproper?  I always find that the Redhat
kernel-source won't build for me (syntax errors in make modules) unless
I clean first.  This may have something to do with being on an AMD
rather than Intel.  I've never tried make rpm, though (didn't know
about it).  Anyway, if you try this and get an error, try make mrproper
(save your .config first, though -- mrproper will remove it!)

> > As you might guess, the last three points are ones I've learned from 
> > personal experience. However, I've also learned from personal experience 
> > that building your own kernel is something that the average Linux user 
> > *can* do. 
> 
> Yes. In theory, one day, the distros will all get it right and
> there will be no need for 95% of people to do it. So they tell 
> me. I'm still waiting..

They're making excellent progress, really.  A year ago I wouldn't
have been able to run most of my devices on any stock distro kernel.
Now I can run almost all of them without having to build my own
kernels (and, alas, I have to, because I can't seem to find a
combination of options that makes my CD-RW burn without oopsing,
whereas Redhat's dist kernel works).

	...Akkana