Kernel Compile is Kaput!
 

Hi, I installed Mepis Linux which is a debain based distro. I quickly upgraded to kernel 2.6.2 via apt-get. However I know that some of my harware is still not properly supported, so as is traditional under such circumstances I would like to compile my own kernel. So I downloaded the latest kernel snapshot from kernel.org and happily prepared to begin my compilation.

However it hasn't been quite that simple.

For some weird reason I can't get any of the kernel compilation tools to work. Menuconfig (which is my prefered tool) was always broken ever since I installed Mepis - which was about a week ago. Xconfig worked briefly - until about yesterday when I did a dist-upgrade to update to KDE 3.2. - after which it crapped out too. Gconfig complains that it needs libglade gtk+ and glib to work - but when I try to do apt-get install -t unstable libglade - or any of these apt-get says it can't find any packages by those names.

What I wonder is going on?

What libraries/ utilities do I need in order to sucessfully compile a kernel?

And does anybody know how to install them by apt-get?

GJ

I'm not positive, but I think the kernel sources you get on Debian via apt-get have special 'debian-only' patches applied, and the latest kernel sources after 2.6.2 don't have much new hardware support. That said, on debian you can apt-get kernel-package (if you're on an intel x86 you might need bin86 too). It gives you the neat ability to create a .deb kernel package that you can install like any other software. (This is the ONLY way I have ever managed to get a kernel and modules to all work). With kernel-package after you configure your kernel just run 'make-kpkg kernel_image' in the linux source directory and it'll create the .deb file in /usr/src.

For menuconfig you need ncursesX.X-dev and tk4X-dev, but that's all I know about your configuration troubles.