Happy

I decided to attempt to upgrade existing kernel 2.6.35.6 with kernel.org latest stable version of kernel 3.2.11 .

What I did is the following:

[1] Download latest kernel tarball from linux.org kernel-3.2.11.tar.bz2 .
[2] Untar it in /usr/src/kernels where I do have my latest 2.6.35.6 headers used.
[3] Recompiled there, created in /usr/src/kernel/3.2.11 System.map and copied it to /boot/System.map-3.2.11 file, and in arch/x86/boot/bzImage which I copied to /boot/ as vmlinux-3.2.11 .
[4] executed as root make module_install, and created /lib/modules/3.2.11 directory as such.
[5] Tried to use from /usr/src/kernel/3.2.11 as root:
[root@localhost 3.2.11]# mkinitrd -f /boot/initramfs-3.2.11.img 3.2.11
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module vmhgfs
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module vsock
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module vmware_balloon
ERROR: modinfo: could not find module vmci
[root@localhost 3.2.11]#
Still, the initramfs-3.2.11.img was created. Not sure should I play with make menuconfig. And not sure how this image was created, as my current kernel is 2.6.35.6-45?!
[6] Then in boot I relinked System.map -> /boot/System.map-2.3.11 and vmlinuz -> /boot/vmlinuz-3.2.11 (as referring to step [3]).

[7] go to /boot/grub/ and changed grub.conf such as added linux (3.2.11) section as shown:
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE: You have a /boot partition. This means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
# root (hd0,0)
# kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/sda2
# initrd /initrd-[generic-]version.img
#boot=/dev/sda
default=1
timeout=0
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Linux (3.2.11)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-3.2.11 ro root=/dev/sda2 quiet
initrd /initramfs-3.2.11.img
title Fedora (2.6.35.6)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.35.6 ro root=UUID=51ae460d-02df-4140-b620-a5cf80b3cc52 rd_NO_LUKS rd_NO_LVM rd_NO_MD rd_NO_DM LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SYSFONT=latarcyrheb-sun16 KEYTABLE=us rhgb quiet

how do i reduce the kernel size

Is there an amd64 version of this kernel?

A lot has changed since the last post and since this is a Sticky don't you think it needs to be updated..how about kernel 4.1.0?

I am the original poster. I agree that it is time for this sticky to be unstuck.

By unstuck i hope you meant "to update" and not to remove it. We do need a reference like that applied to newer versions and kernels.

I just sent a message to unspawn (one of the moderators) and he un-stickied it. He also asked about updating it. I'll try to post a revised version soon as a new thread. I have an old PC sitting in my office that I can play around with. I'll just do a clean install of Jessie on it, then compile a custom kernel while writing down everything I do. It has been years since I compiled a kernel, so hopefully not too much has changed. If I run into trouble, I'll just post my questions here at LQ. Last night when I was looking at this thread, I was kind of shocked to see it has almost 250,000 views. I'm far from being a Linux guru, so it is amazing to see that the thread has been used by so many people.

The grub section is most likely the part that is the most out dated, grub2 is the default now, not grub-legacy

Thanks a lot, i am sure that will be greatly appreciated by an equal, if not greater number of recent Debian converts like me who have begun their journey with Jessie and systemd and have no real acquaintance with what came before it.

---------- Post added 2015-08-27 at 11:44 PM ----------