Build kernel and modules
NOT READY JET! I am on it...
Contents
Introdution
This Howto should tell you shortly how to build your own kernel. First of all you should know whether you want a vanilla kernel or a modfied kernel especially for your distribution.
Different kernel types
Vanilla kernel
Vanilla kernels are not modified - means the kernel was released by Linus Torvalds.
Distribution kernels
Nearly all distributions modify the vanilla kernel for their own wishes with own patches, mainly in order to add support for drivers or features which have not officially been released as stable (Slackware relies on vanilla kernels).
Prearrangement
First of all you should know what hardware youre kernel later runs on. If you already run a linux on your target try:
/sbin/lspci
And:
cat /proc/cpuinfo
Installation of the needed tools
Use RPM, apt, YAST, portage, etc.. if you have a distribution to install kernel source package. Or download youre favorite kernel at: kernel.org
Make a directory like: /usr/src
cd /usr/src
tar xfvj linux-x.x.x-x.tar.bz2
or
tar xfvz linux-x.x.x-x.tar.gz
ln -s linux-x.x.x-x linux
The make prozess
cd linux make menuconfig make modules make modules_install
Creating the ramdisk
cd /boot mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-x.x.x.x x.x.x.x
where x.x.x.x is the kernel version btw. the version of the kernel modules to load.
Configuring grub
Add s.th. like this in /boot/grub/menu.list
title MyLinux (/dev/hdc3) kernel (hd1,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 initrd (hd1,2)/boot/initrd
Where /dev/hdc3 is the 3rd partiotion on hdc and hd1,2 is the 3rd partition on the first harddisk