I am now running on a custom build of the 2.6.31.6 kernel. I haven’t made any source mods yet, but I am now armed and dangerous. This post will cover what I had to go through.
More or less, I had a smooth experience aside from one bug. I will try and recap what I did. I didn’t take notes, so this list comes from looking back over the reference guides. There may be some things missing, sorry.
1. Found a few good references
- Official Ubuntu Kernel Compilation Instructions – see the The Old-Fashioned Debian Way instructions, that is what I followed
- How to Compile a Kernel – The Ubuntu Way - old, but had some good tips
2. Download the source
- I used Synaptic to get a source archive instead of going with Git
- I grabbed linux-source-2.6.31
3. Unpack the source into ~/dev/linux-source-2.6.31
- cp /usr/src/linux-source02.6.31.tar.bz2 ~/dev
- cd ~/dev
- tar xjf linux-source02.6.31.tar.bz2
4. Grab a whole mess of dev stuff
- sudo apt-get install fakeroot kernel-wedge build-essential makedumpfile
- sudo apt-get build-dep linux
- I didn’t take good notes, but I remember having to grab more things. You’re on your own, kid.
5. Create a kernel config file using the current as a base
- cp /boot/config-[whatever] ~/.config
6. Run menuconfig
- cd ~/dev/linuxwhatever
- make menuconfig
- Note the instruction on turning off “Kernel hacking” –> “Compile the kernel with debug info”
7. Gets me some compiler go fast
- export CONCURRENCY_LEVEL=3
8. Compile, and then wait
- fakeroot make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version=-plaird kernel-image kernel-headers
- Be sure to replace plaird with something meaningful to you
- This took about 30 minutes for me
- It puts two .deb files into the parent directory (~/dev)
9. Install the kernel, unsuccessfully
- sudo dpkg -i linux-image-xxx_i386.deb
- sudo dpkg -i linux-headers-xxx_i386.deb
This should have worked, but there currently is a weird bug in dkms that affects folks with nvidia graphic cards:
run-parts: /etc/kernel/postinst.d/nvidia-common exited with return code 20
10. Find fix for Bug #292606
It turns out this bug is known, and there is a fix. Since it took the devs a while to figure out the solution, there were some dead ends before I found the right fix.
- sudo gedit /etc/kernel/postinst.d/kernel_postinst.d_dkms
- add ‘> /dev/null’ after ‘start dkms_autoinstaller KERNEL=$inst_kern’
11. Install the kernel, successfully
Rerun step 9.
12. Make sure /boot/grub/menu.lst has an entry for your new kernel
- The install process might have already done this if you haven’t manually modified menu.lst (I had)
13. Reboot and enjoy
- Armed and dangerous.
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