I'm trying to recompile my kernel. How can I get the source code for the kernel?. Can I just download it from www.kernel.org or do I need a special source package for debian?

Thanks in advance

Merry Christmas

Both will do.

Not quite. Debian has special patches applied to the kernel, not exactly sure whatfor. So using a vanilla kernel from the kernel.org guys might not work on your system. So, use the Debian kernel sources if you want to re-compile against your Debian kernel.

I've used a number of vanilla kernel sources from kernel.org on my Debian machine without a problem. It may help that I'm using this page as my guide to recompilation; I couldn't say. See section 7.1.1 for "the Debian Way".

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/re...kernel.en.html

Never had a problem with vanilla kernels on Debian. If you need some extra functionality you can patch vanilla sources too.

yeah i'm using a vanilla kernel aswell 2.6.17 is going it for me.. for some reason 2.6.19 is giving me probs for my wifi card when compiling..

just copy the .config from your /boot and then do makemenuconfig .config you and you'll be fine

just a tip tho.. use kpkg. there is a sticky explaining it all very well.

Hold your horses! If you use .config from an older version you must run make oldconfig. And even this is does not guarantee anything. Best way to do it is to configure your kernel from scratch. Yes, it will take long. Yes, it involves lots of reading. But in the end you will be awarded with stable and fast OS.

Does this look familiar? Either use "touch" to create the file in your kernel source include/linux directory, or just delete the line from ah_osdep.c. You could also switch to madwifi-ng. I don't think that version has the dependency.

"Hold your horses! If you use .config from an older version you must run make oldconfig."

"MUST"? I think not. I've switched from 2.4 through several versions of 2.6 up to, now, 2.6.19.1. I've tried running make oldconfig a few times, but there's always so much noise to deal with that I just stop it and run make menuconfig to deal with it. That's not to say that make oldconfig isn't a good idea though, as you will be presented with all the new options and can delete them on the fly. I just found it overwhelming at first, as I was being asked a bunch of questions and didn't have a clue whether I wanted the new stuff or not.

What a childish approach. Here you described how not to build a kernel. You do not know what you built in and what not. You get a bloated kernel. Your kernel will contain lots of unnecessary drivers which possibly conflict with each other. Something you actually may want is not compiled in because you even do not know it exists.

What i wrote in my previous post comes from kernel developers. Now you probably say developers don't know a thing about it?

"What i wrote in my previous post comes from kernel developers. Now you probably say developers don't know a thing about it?"

I'm sure they know a lot about it. But, name-dropping doesn't infer any god-like abilities on yourself. There is a lot to say about JUST DOING things in this world. Yes, it may be childish, as compared to taking a university course first. But, you know what: you do actually manage to get things done, and you learn the consequences of doing it the wrong way in the process. At this point, I don't think there's much left I could get rid of in my kernel. Perhaps, but it's not due to lack of trying - or from not running "make oldconfig" and getting an output that I simply wasn't prepared to deal with because I was in the early learning stage.

I love elitists of all stripes. But, they do usually need a bit of ketchup to go down smoothly.

Happy Christmas.

Yes, you can drive around a blind corner 60 mph every day and say: dude, you are stupid if you slow down here, see, nothing has happened to me. You can compile your kernels how you want, sure. OP here may be not that scruffy though.

Merry Christmas to everybody.

"You can compile your kernels how you want, sure."

Too true. And yet, there's always someone out there like you who feels a personal responsibility to call me names. Well done!

So you admit there's something wrong with you?

Seriously, these forums here are for helping people with their Linux questions and problems. We better keep up the quality.

Running "make oldconfig" will pickup any changed features in the new kernel. You can go back and make further changes if you want, but normally you already did that configuring your last kernel version.