kernel compile questions

i just compiled my first kernel and I am verry discouraged. first off even after i compiled it with just about everything in the main kernel (which only took about 7 or 8 mins on my celeron 500mhz) its smaller than my old kernel (i selected to use ther kernel from the flopy when i was instaling slack)

then i started X windows (thank god that worked) and tried to play music and that didnt work, then I ran "alsamixer" and i said it couldnt find my sound card (which im almost sure that i compiled its driver into the kernel).

why again, do people compile their own kernel, it seems like to much effort for what reward. other than upgrading your kernel, although that also seems useless as long as your current kernel isnt limiting you in some way.

If the kernel you were using worked, why did you recompile? You would only recompile if, like you said, you needed support for hardware, or, you want to test the new kernel.

i recompiled it cause i wanted to have suport suport for 802.11b wireless. i have a USB device but lucky for me it uses the Prism2 chipset.

although the patch at http://www.linux-wlan.com (that suports 802.11b USB) doesnt work for me (it keeps telling me that the kernel headers are there but the source isnt present) so I was gona use my brothers PCI 802.11b card (also uses prism2).

but i guess ill have to go on in linux w/o network, although that seems like a hinderance which might keep me from using slackware as much as i use windows

Trial and error. Try again.

is it's compile supposed to be this quick?
it seemed kinda weird cause it took almost as long as it took when i compiled xmms. that doesnt seem right.

how long does the make "bzImage" & "make" usually take for a fairly large kernel?

and how large are they suposed to be?
my new kernel is only 1200 kb (according to the gentoo graphical file borwser)

last little note, after i did the make bzImage, when it finished its last couple of messages said something about the kernel being to large to boot off a flopy, has anyone else goten this? does it affect the compile in any way?

how long the bzImage compiles ??? depends on your machine I guess, I got a machine (an old p2, 350mhz) compiling the kernel will take around 2 hrs (from make mrproper to make modules_install)

DAMIT. MY STUPID SLACKWARE IS SO FREAKING GLICHY.

does ANYBODY get that message about the kernel being to big to boot off a flopy, cause i think that is what is keeping my kernel so small. and i DESPERATLY want to be able to do a regular install without that damn message fu**king stuff up.

Originally posted by e1000 DAMIT. MY STUPID SLACKWARE IS SO FREAKING GLICHY. does ANYBODY get that message about the kernel being to big to boot off a flopy, cause i think that is what is keeping my kernel so small. and i DESPERATLY want to be able to do a regular install without that damn message fu**king stuff up.

That has got absolutely NOTHING to do with your kernel being small! It's just a NOTIFICATION. Your bzImage will STILL be in your arch/i386/boot/ it's just that IT WON'T FIT ON A FLOPPY. Like the notification said.

Don't lose your head over it... you can still use the kernel as usual...

According to compile time I bet you forgot to compile the modules (with "make modules" and then "make modules_install")


You must have read "the kernel compiling guide for noobiez"
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=49035

if you follow all the steps, you cannot go wrong

nope, when i did "make modules" it took about 45 seconds, and "make modules_install" took even less time!

its like no matter what I tell it to do it wont compile my kernel. although it does a good job looking like its compiling the kernel, but theres no way that the huge kernel that i configured compiled so quickly

Originally posted by e1000 nope, when i did "make modules" it took about 45 seconds, and "make modules_install" took even less time! its like no matter what I tell it to do it wont compile my kernel. although it does a good job looking like its compiling the kernel, but theres no way that the huge kernel that i configured compiled so quickly

Ever heard of compiler caching? Frequently used compilations and their flags are cached. So, whenever you compile a new version of your kernel, you'll notice that it is darn slow. However, the next time you recompile, you'll notice a significant reduction in the time that it took to recompile the kernel.

Believe me, if you've configured your kernel options properly, it definitely is in the bzImage. How big did you expect the kernel to be anyway? And how did you come up with this reasoning?