the actual compile time depends on ur CPU, and such. also u have to consider how much time u gonna need to go over "make xconfig"...

make modules takes a lot of time, in my opinion. if you are short in time, i advise you -not- to touch ur kernel. unless you write down every steps you did in the pervious day...

well, basically yes like mentioned the speed of your machine obviously plays a factor, but the most time consuming step(s) for a first timer would be the make config and obviously make bzImage takes it fair share of time, but that will all depend on what you choose ... cause you have to sort through everything that you want / dont' want, and that could take time especially when you have no idea what something is, and then you click the help button to read what it is and then choose weather or not to compile it ...
as of make modules, that only takes a lot of time, obviously if you choose alot of modules, cause personally when i type make modules and make modules_install, it takes a combined total of about 25 seconds ... so it just all depends on how you go about everything ....
but on an overall note, i would say that if you stuck with it and payed attention to what you are doing, and focused, you could definetly get it done in 2 hours no problem ...

Crap crap crap crap.....

Okay, so I did everything else I needed to do with compiling 2.6.1. I go to make the new initrd, but when I append 2.6.1 to the end of the command, it says /lib/modules/2.6.1 isn't a directory... I did every thing i had to do in the right order too

alright, thank you both for the info. i think i will wait and try it on a weekend, just in case i run into some problems

most of my computer specs are listed in my signature too

skip that step and see if you get it working without doing it ...
you may not need it (depending on your system), but more so you probably don't
and you may not even compiled support for it ..

Forget ALL other questions I've asked in this topic...

Alright. 2.6.1 apparently compiled succesfully. However, I boot up, choose my kernel from GRUB, and the loading begins. Then I get a kernel panic after the system frees unused memory. To "quote" it:
How would I go about fixing this?

I have talked to a few people that have used this guide to compile there 2.6 kernel so I wanted to post something to clear up a few things.

They made an attempt to make compiling 2.6 kernels easier. There are now three basic steps:

1. configure your kernel (make menuconfig, make xconfig, you have a few choices here)
2. make - This builds everything, modules, bzImage's, everything.
3. make modules_install - This sets up the /lib/modules/<insert kernel version here> directory

Then of course you have to copy over your arch/<your architecture, probably i386>/boot/bzImage file to /boot and update your boot loader. If you use a system that
needs initrd (read: RedHat), you have to make that stuff as well.

There is no need for make dep, make modules, or make bzImage. They have all been combined into the make command.

The biggest misunderstand seams to be with the make mrproper command. From the Makefile iself:

###
# Cleaning is done on three levels.
# make clean Delete all automatically generated files, including
# tools and firmware.
# make mrproper Delete the current configuration, and related files
# Any core files spread around are deleted as well
# make distclean Remove editor backup files, patch leftover files and the like

DON'T run make mrproper after you have configured your kernel because it is going to remove your .config file which you just spend all that time creating. If you want to ensure you have a clean kernel source before you start, doing these commands is ok, but that is the only reason you would do this.

Also, you MUST make sure to include your root file system type in the kernel or it will never be about to mount the root partition

there is nothing in your post that i don't agree with, cause its all legit, but one thing i am having a hard time coming to terms is, is if you are writing this to respond to someone or if your writing this to correct something in the guide ....
cause there is a couple things i noticed that you wrote that your points (although correct) kinda don't apply
first you say just type "make" but i specify to type "make bzImage" and "make modules", so something like that is irrelevant in the correcting kinda way but is still useful for the lazy people (i guess) ...
secondly, you stress not to type mrproper after configuring (which is obvious) but the thing is, is that i have it at the beginning of the guide before the end user does anything, so nothing is getting deleted (basically) ... but then again if you are just stating this fact for knowledge then so be it ...
and last you stress there is no need to do steps such as make dep and the such, but if you notice i split the guide for 2.4 and 2.6 kernels (cause some people do still use 2.4) ..
so don't get me wrong, your correct in all aspects, but i just didn't see how it applied to anything .... it just seems like you wrote the guide in 3 sentences as opposed to what it is ..... but the point of the guide is to explain while showing what to do ....


as for you echs, read jtsaw's last sentence and make sure thats not what you did ...

I wasn't posting that to correct anything in your guide, but I have talked to at least 4 people this week that seamed to not really understand what things like make mrproper actually did. I was in particular trying to clarify because they were confused into thinking it might fix there problem if they got a module symbol error or something like that.

I'm pretty sure I have ext3 set... I saw ext3 journaling selected when i ran make xconfig. Plus, it appears to mount correctly, since I get the panic after the system frees unused memory.

ok but all you showed in your error was the last line of the error which is simply the kernel panic line ... lets say the important part to correcting this error lies in something that was outputted before hand ...
for example ... you could have got something like the below ...

mounting root filesystem
mount: error 19 mounting EXT3
pivot: pivot_root (/sysroot, /sysroot/initrd) failed:2
unmount /init/proc failed:2
Freeing unused kernel memory: 220k freed
Kernel panic: no INIT found. Try passing init= option to kernel.

i just seen another thread with a guy on the board with this error, and as you can see, the errors show above the panic, giving us more of an idea ...
is there anyway you could post more of the problem ?

ok cool man, and like i said there was no arguements in what you said, its just that i thought you were seeing something in the guide that was incorrect, and maybe i was overlooking it ...

Okay... I was talking to jtshaw last night on trying to get it to boot. He told me to try deleting the initrd line in GRUB, and sure enough, it worked. However, the system will not recognize input from my keyboard or mouse. It apprently can't find usb-ohci or something like that. I don't get why it won't automatically install the most widely used bus in the world, but.... so what can I do to fix this?

Go back into your kernel configuration and add USB support. Make sure you also have USB HID support.

Ugh... recompile it yet again?

Well all you have to do is run the configure thing again, add the new stuff, type make, and make modules_install, and it'll take a hell of a lot less time this time. Just don't do a make clean first