Re: Building custom kernel based off stock debian kernel

[Nick Jennings <nick@namodn.com>]

On Thu, Feb 07, 2002 at 08:03:29PM -0500, Faheem Mitha wrote:
> 
> >  Is the 'source kernel-image-2.4.17' what I am supposed to be building
> >  from? If so, why is there no '.config' in there? Where do I get the
> >  '.config' from?
> 
> You make it yourself by running make menuconfig or make xconfig. I
> strongly suggest take your time in this step or you will end up with a
> broken kernel. Also make xconfig is nicer and recommended if you have X
> running, though the two are very similar.

 I can get around faster in menuconfig (no mousey :)


> >  Now assuming I get answers to these questions, can someone please verify
> >  the the following would be how I build this source into a kernel package?
> >
> > <apply customization>
> > patch kernel && 'make menuconfig' to customize kernel configuration.
> 
> Why do you want to patch the kernel?

 FreeSWAN, the debian kernel-patch-freeswan does not work the "debian"
 way, so I downloaded the source from freeswans website and just applied
 the patch that way. The userspace utils (like pluto) i am using from
 the debian package 'freeswan'.

 This way, when I have built the kernel as a deb package, I am still
 using only debian packages (since the freeswan patch was only a 
 step to building the kernel).


> > <build kernel package>
> > gateway:/usr/src/linux# make-kpkg --revision=gateway.1 --initrd buildpackage
> 
> I was in a rather similar position to you last Christmas, when I wanted to
> build a kernel but had never done before. My advice to you is to do the
> following:

 Thanks for your reccomended reading. However, just so you know, I have
 been building kernels for years. Actually THAT was alot easier than
 learning how to do all this the "debian" way I think. :)

 And building a kernel package seems to have been streamlined to avoid
 problems. It's even harder to build a userspace package I think. :)


-- 
  Nick Jennings