How To Compile A custom Kernel???

[Tru]

Hello, I searched around the forums a bit and didnt see anything real clear on how to compile a kernel. This would be a great How To and I know myself and many others would love to have a detailed How to with screen shots of the terminal on each step.

Could someone please post this ASAP or if no one wants to do that give me some good links. Also is compiling a kernel the same process for all distros?

Here is a good tutorial for compiling a custom kernel into an rpm. This method may only work on fedora or other rpm based distros, but you can always compile and manually install the kernel if you want to learn how to do it universially.

Just so you know, compiling and configuring a kernel are different task. You have to configure it before you compile it.

[Tru]

ok, thank you i am reading it now.

[Trel]

I have a kernel I downloaded so I could use nvidia drivers, however this kernel doesn't support the ud whatever I need so I can view DVDs. So I guess I need to compile it myself.

This brings up the following problems
1. I don't want to lose anything it supports now
2. I don't want to add anything except the thing I need to be able to watch DVDs
3. I don't have any source for the kernel
4. I have no clue how to comile a custom kernel

Any help would be appriciated.

[james_in_denver]

It's not that hard if you already have gcc (the compile) installed.

open a terminal/console window

"cd /usr/src"
"ls"
"cd yourbasickerneldirhere"
"make xconfig", (or if it's a 2.8 version kernel, then i BELIEVE that it is "make gconfig")
select the options that you want turned on.
save the configuration and exit the configuration window
"make ; make install ; make modules ; make modules_install"

If you are running grub, then just reboot, and select your new kernel when the machine comes back.
if you are running lilo, then type in "lilo", then reboot and select your new kernel when the machine comes back on.

If you are using the lilo bootloader, when you see the "lilo" prompt after rebooting, hit the tab key for a list of kernels you can boot. then type in the specific kernel that you want to boot.

[Trel]

I am using 2.8 but gconfig doens't work but xconfig does, however, I don't see anything about nvidia drivers.

[lreznick]

Trel:

You nave to go to the NVIDIA site at nvidia.com to download their latest driver. Their current version is 1.0-6111. The nv driver already available for you isn't as good as NVIDIA's. The rest of the kernel support appears to be Riva support and nForce support. I disabled Riva support for my card because NVIDIA's driver complained. (I'm using kernel 2.6.8.1 on FC2.) The driver installation package you download is a shell script.

Once you've downloaded it, you have to build it with the kernel you want to run it with built and executing. So, if you haven't already done so, configure, compile, & install your kernel and modules. Then reboot to single user or runlevel 3. NVIDIA's driver won't install if X is running.

Once rebooted in the kernel you want to run the driver with, cd to the dir where you stored the driver and run

sh NVIDIA-whatever-version-it-is

and answer the questions. You probably don't want to bother with a networking retrieval because your newly made kernel won't match anything they've got.

Once the driver is installed, edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Comment out the "dri" line in the modules sectoin and change your screen section's driver to "nvidia" (The default driver is "nv" so don't use that one any more.) You can add any other relevant options from their README file, but for now, just do these changes and come back to xorg.conf later. Save it and reboot to runlevel 5.

If all works right, you'll see the NVIDIA logo screen once or twice during the startup.

If you ever remake your kernel again, you'll have to reinstall the NVIDIA driver. It links into the kernel, so all kernel changes demand that you run it again.

[james_in_denver]

Just poked around a bit, it looks like NVidia offers a "binary" driver for linux kernel-2.6.

What that means is, that you need a 2.6 kernel to run their driver. But that it is NOT part of the 2.6 kernel.

So if you get a 2.6 kernel, (2.8 might??? be compatible enough), build it.

then you will have to follow the instructions for the NVidia driver. That will be a seperate task than building the kernel.

Sorry, it would be SOOOO much easier if NVidia would just add their driver to the kernel, but NOOOO...

Oh well, good luck let me know how it goes.

(also you will probably have to change your screen config "driver" definition section in the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf..)

IF I helped, please boot my reputation!

[Trel]

I'm still pretty much lost, I'm mostly a newbie to linux.

[Tru]

Goto www.fedorafaq.org and there it shows you how to use yum to install nvidia driver thats what I did and it was easy. Although I did this with the 2.6 kernel not 2.8 but its worth a try and with yum doing it, it is much easier.

Well I am about to try the kernel compile on FC2 that I am running on VMWARE well see how it goes. I will check back and say what happend.

[Trel]

Well actually I was confused, I have 2.6.8, I messed up when I said I had 2.8.

So hopefully I'll get it, but still when trying to compile the kernel with xconfig, I don't see anything about nvidia drivers and I'm using them now, so I know it's on my computer.

[Tru]

I am running FC2 on vmware on my xp box and I get thru all the steps fine until I do "make config" then I just get a bunch of errors. This could just be because of vmware, I will try tomorrow at school on my fedora box there.

[james_in_denver]

I am not certain if the nvidia driver acceleration will work under vmware?.....

You are probably better off setting up a "dual boot" system, where you have a dedicated partiton for windows, and another, seperate partition for linux. Some of the low level drivers might not be compatible while running under an emulator

[Tru]

No, that is the other guy trying to get 3d acceleration I am just trying to compile kerenl. I did some more searching and found that instead of "make config" you have to do "make gconfig&" for the 2.6.8 kernel. I am about to try this and see if it helps, I will post back.

[Trel]

I get an error on the make install

make[1]: `arch/i386/kernel/asm-offsets.s' is up to date.
CHK include/linux/compile.h
Kernel: arch/i386/boot/bzImage is ready
sh /usr/src/linux-2.6.8-1.521/arch/i386/boot/install.sh 2.6.8-1.521custom arch/i386/boot/bzImage System.map ""
WARNING: Couldn't open directory /lib/modules/2.6.8-1.521custom: No such file or directory
FATAL: Could not open /lib/modules/2.6.8-1.521custom/modules.dep.temp for writing: No such file or directory
/lib/modules/2.6.8-1.521custom is not a directory.
mkinitrd failed
make[1]: *** [install] Error 1
make: *** [install] Error 2