gamehack

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Is it possible to use your own kernel without using the initrd and cramfs and etc...because in gentoo and slackware everything was a breeze and I don't know if Debian needs some of its own kernel patches in order to work properly ?

Thanks

Cheers,
gamehack

m_yates

You don't have to use the kpkg tool to make a kernel, or any of the Debian-specific stuff. If you want to, you can upgrade the kernel exactly the same way you do in Slackware or Gentoo. I just found it was easier to make a Debian package using make-kpkg. Of course, you will have to configure your kernel differently to avoid using an initrd, but if you have a working configuration from Slackware or Gentoo, you could use it.

utanja

just how do you configure the kernel (2.6.8) so that initrd is not necessary?

muxman

Great question. I tried getting rid of things in my kernel that my system doesn't use and when I try to make the initrd.img i get errors.


Is there a guide somewhere which can help you to slim down your kernel and avoid errors? I just want to get rid of the things that my system doesn't need but I'm running into some problems.

wellmt

utanja, muxman

You need to make sure that your disk controllers and the root file system (ReiserFS, Ext3 or whatever) is compliled into the kernel and not set as a module. Don't enable the RAM disk option, initial Ram disk or cramfs patch options in the kernel configuration either.

When you build the kernel package you then don't need the --initrd option

Sorry can't give you proper kernel option names, not on my Linux box at the moment.

utanja

thank you so much....when you have the time, would you kindly list the names of the modules that must be included...i have it working without initrd but i think i included more than needed..

SolarBear

Thanks for the help on compiling a custom kernel (seems I have too, otherwise my crappy SB Audigy LS won't work it seems).

Still, I have a problem... when I get to make menuconfig, I get these errors - here are the first ones.

HOSTCC scripts/basic/fixdep
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:97:23: sys/types.h: No such file or directory
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:98:22: sys/stat.h: No such file or directory
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:99:22: sys/mman.h: No such file or directory
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:100:20: unistd.h: No such file or directory
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:101:19: fcntl.h: No such file or directory
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:102:20: string.h: No such file or directory
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:103:20: stdlib.h: No such file or directory
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:104:19: stdio.h: No such file or directory
In file included from /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-linux/3.3.4/include/syslimits.h:7,
from /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-linux/3.3.4/include/limits.h:11,
from scripts/basic/fixdep.c:105:
/usr/lib/gcc-lib/i486-linux/3.3.4/include/limits.h:122:75: limits.h: No such file or directory
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:106:19: ctype.h: No such file or directory
scripts/basic/fixdep.c:107:24: netinet/in.h: No such file or directory


... and this goes on for quite a while. I suppose I miss some libraries to compile the kernel, but which one are they ? I'm not quite sure.

peoyu

Thx!

provkitir

hi

i run a 2.6.9 debian sid on 800 MHz and 384 MB ram compaq m700 and i was recompiling the kernel for swsusp support, and the compilation just kept eating disk space til it ate about 1 GB worth of space. how can this be?? thanks!
to note, I disabled almost everything I don't need for my box, and it still took soo much space, is this normal?

dmigh

sorry i have my own

1.make menuconfig
<do some configs> : <M> <*> <> things

2. make; make install

3. make modules_install (make sure you have module-init-tools)

4. /usr/sbin/mkinitrd -o /boot/initrd.img-2.6.10-rc2 2.6.10-rc2

5. vi /boot/grub/menu.lst
<do some edit> : v y p ZZ

6. reboot

--
try to remove ramdisk. thanks.

PS: Thanks to earlier poster. the link (kerneltrap.org) helped me out.
but, boot with no initrd not much different from with initrd..

1-1. to boot with no-initrd option (you should skip 4.)
debian:/usr/src/linux-2.6.10-rc3# vi .config

CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDISK=y (it was m)

subaruwrx

Hi,

I think I'm more used to compile and install kernel the standard way. So I grab a copy of the latest stable 2.6.9.tar.bz2 from kernel.org. Extract to /usr/src, link to /usr/src/linux. Then I proceed to make menuconfig but encounter the error.

Any idea?

btw, what are kernel-headers for?

utanja

to get ncurses try this

apt-get install ncurses-dev

subaruwrx

thanx btw got a question.

How do I check the name of the application that I want to apt-get install?

vavoem

use
apt-cache search whateveryouwanttosearchfor|less

verus

my actual post is following this brief introduction.
The above smilies says it all!
Greetings.