Quick re-compile question
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From: Kurt on 16 Feb 2010 19:26 Hi, Am an old script kiddie from 1994 and did pretty well re-compiling kernels in the old sub Ghz cpu based boards before USB was invented. I'm currently using these devices up to this day. A dual Tyan K7 board http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=TYAN-S2462&cat=MBB with two AMD 1.7Ghz cpus is still serving me extremely well and an old ALR Quad 6 server and ALR 6 X 6 servers still run versions of Slackware pretty nicely in spite of their age. Used some PPro 333Mhz OD cpus from the first generation mind you. Don't run 'em as often anymore because they really draw the current and throw off a lot of heat.:-) In the "old days", I could pretty much pick out what was on the motherboard via the manuals and what the system utilities in Gnome, or KDE showed was in there. Yes there was a time when Slack came with and could run both of them until they began to diverge too much and they had to choose one over the other. I then manually re-compiled the kernel from the menus, by hand without too much trouble. I always manually chose what to put in on a fresh install and with the multi-processor units, I'd have to recompile to get SMP into the kernel using just a single processor. That always took a long time.:-) I finally just ended up getting a laptop about a year and a half ago and ventured a try at getting Slackware 12 loaded. There was so much stuff on this thing with plug and pray, USB and what have you, I "broke down" and just told the installer to put everything in there. Killed me but I did it. Lo' and beholden, everything worked! I had a work laptop that wouldn't let me even put a fresh drive in it and load a clean licensed WinBlows OS on it because of a stupid security chip. I dropped good 'ol Slack on the DVD/CD drive and that sucker duly loaded right up with everything working! My question is, where is a good starting point if I do want to recompile a kernel to say add AX.25 or what have you? Use a config from an initial install and modify it? I don't want to break something and kill wireless or Pand P or USB by accident. Or forget to compile something as a module that "needs" to be compiled as a module to work. I'd be happy with some links to advice so I could recompile a kernel in a system when I originally told the installer to "put everything" on the computer. A long explanation is not solicited and pointers and links much appreciated. Thanks for your time for reading this. Best regards, Kurt
From: Grant on 16 Feb 2010 21:28 On Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:26:39 -0800 (PST), Kurt <ksaves2(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote: .... > I'd be happy with some links to advice so I could recompile a kernel >in a system when I originally told the installer to "put everything" >on the computer. A long explanation is not solicited and pointers and >links much appreciated. Thanks for your time for reading this. For 2.6 series, I make a new hardlinked source tree for each variation, each with its own tag, just a single letter suffix, for example: drwxr-xr-x 22 grant wheel 776 2008-10-14 06:00 linux-2.6.27/ drwxr-xr-x 23 grant wheel 1552 2010-01-29 16:35 linux-2.6.27.45a/ If I was trying to improve things, I'd 'cp -al ...a ...b' and change the user suffix to 'b' for the trial version. This way, I can always boot version 'a' if 'b' doesn't boot. Also, I can completely nuke a bad tree and start over. I use a script to do the make install sequence, but it's a bit dated, caters for 2.4 as well as 2.6 series kernels. http://bugsplatter.id.au/bash/kernel/ Still not found a tuit, planning to update this stuff, but hey, it works for me :) Grant. -- http://bugs.id.au/
From: Henrik Carlqvist on 17 Feb 2010 02:11 Kurt <ksaves2(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote: > My question is, where is a good starting point if I do want to recompile > a kernel to say add AX.25 or what have you? Use a config from an > initial install and modify it? Yep, that is the best way to do it. It might also be good to keep the original kernel source tree unmodified to have as a reference later. So you might want to do something like: cd /usr/src tar -cf - linux-* | (cd /var/tmp ; tar -xvf -) cd /var/tmp/linux-* cp /boot/config .config make xconfig make bzImage You seem to have enough experience to know how to later copy the compiled kernel to /boot and use it from lilo. However, the above is only the best way to recompile the kernel. If you only want to add some feature recompiling the kernel might not be the best way to add that feature. At moste times it is more convenient to compile the new feature as a module instead. regards Henrik -- The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is: hc3(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers: root(a)localhost postmaster(a)localhost
From: Kurt on 17 Feb 2010 11:03 Thanks for all the pointers. Some of them I've used in the past in some form or other. Will explore the "meat" of these messages. I have Slack 13 running on the laptops with the stock 2.6 kernel and the old servers run Slack 12.X. I can still re-compile those old ALR things from scratch as I have a good handle on "what's inside". Best regards, Kurt
From: Chick Tower on 17 Feb 2010 11:55
On 2010-02-17, Kurt <ksaves2(a)sbcglobal.net> wrote: > My question is, where is a good starting point if I do want to > recompile a kernel Perhaps you will find this page useful. http://www.slackbasics.org/html/kernel.html -- Chick Tower For e-mail: aols2 DOT sent DOT towerboy AT xoxy DOT net |