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Compiling a kernel for debian
This guide is mainly here to help me when it comes to building new kernels. I do it so infrequently that I miss little bits or forget to do something that involves me then trying to recover from a bodged kernel. It is not a definitive guide just enough to get me through the whole process
Kernel Compiling is easy
I have heard people say that compiling a kernel is hard. let me say now for the record its not compiling a kernel thats hard its all the other stuff you need to do that is hard. Compiling a kernel can be done as follows
apt-get install kernel-source-2.6.5 apt-get install kernel-patch-debian-2.6.5 cd /usr/src tar jxvf kernel-source-2.6.5.tar.bz2 ln -s kernel-source-2.6.5 linux cd linux make oldconfig make-kpkg clean make-kpkg --initrd kernel_image cd ../ rm linux
Quite simply that is as simple as it gets but there is more to it than this. Select "oldconfig" is a reliable way to get a working kernel. This option compiles a kernel based on options that where previously selcted in your currrent kernel. Newer kernels have extra options and you will be prompted for these where they occour. It is normally safe to just go with the defaults unless you know you want that specific option set.
There was one step that I deliberately left out of the above and that is installing the kernel. This is where most people balls thigs up and end up with an unbootable system. A smart investment is a rescue CD. This may take a while to download but trust me, its worth its weight in gold when everything goes pear shaped you can use it to get back into the system and sort things out. Another thing I always do is to make sure that I always have an old kernel that is reliable and my lilo config is setup so that I can boot the old one at the boot prompt if I want to this can also save some heartache. To install the debian package createed above just do:
cd /usr/src dpkg -i kernel-image-2.6.5_10.00.Custom_i386.deb
Lilo configuration
After the kernel has been installed it is wise to check your lilo config. My /etc/lilo.conf
lba32 boot=/dev/hda root=/dev/hda2 install=/boot/boot-menu.b map=/boot/map delay=20 vga=normal default=linux #--------------------------------------- # # CURRENT KERNEL image=/vmlinuz initrd=/initrd.img label=linux read-only #--------------------------------------- # # SAFE KERNELS image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.20-compact label=safe read-only optional #------------------------------------------- # # TESTING KERNELS image=/boot/memtest86+.bin label=memtest86
You can see that I have an old 2.2.20 kernel that I know is good and whenever I get a problem I can just use it to boot the system