Where do you put your kernel source?

raska · 09-14-2006, 09:47 AM

Actually it seems more like Zero Wing now that you notice... LOL

my mistake

hussar · 09-14-2006, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruce Hill

Just a minor aside to the above ... when a person first starts configuring a kernel, he's going to have that "make xconfig" (where x is a variable) open a long time. This doesn't have to be run as root, which would be better for guys new to configuring a kernel. The configuration process is the most strenuous portion of the kernel rebuild process. In this step you are deciding which features will be included in the final kernel and it can require lots of hardware knowledge. These decisions are important to getting a good kernel build, and will therefore require much time.

When xconfig first came out, I didn't have a lot of success with it. I had some kernel builds that didn't go quite right, and the only thing I was able to track it back to was xconfig. I was also working on a much slower processor than I am now, and having X running during the compile measurably lengthened my compile times. So I got used to using menuconfig. Now when I configure and compile a kernel, I will open an xterm, su to root, cd to /usr/src/linux, configure with menuconfig, compile and do all the other stuff up to the reboot, and then when I exit root, I am back in my home directory again safe and sound.

dracolich · 09-14-2006, 02:36 PM

Just like when I first installed Slack. I actually did change it to a subdir in /usr/local/src because my /usr/local/src is a seperate hard disk with all space devoted to that dir. And my /usr/src is a symlink to /usr/local/src/kernel.

But on my laptop it's just /usr/src/linux-<version>.

Bruce Hill · 09-14-2006, 06:33 PM

Originally posted by tuxdev

Quote:

Where do you decompress your kernels to?

So this is the show and tell answer to the question you asked:

Code:

mingdao@silas:~/kernel$ pwd
/home/mingdao/kernel
mingdao@silas:~/kernel$ tar xvjf linux-2.6.17.13.tar.bz2

which created /home/mingdao/kernel/linux-2.6.17.13/
from whence I do not move the source.

Bruce Hill · 09-14-2006, 06:39 PM

Originally posted by hussar

Quote:

When xconfig first came out, I didn't have a lot of success with it. I had some kernel builds that didn't go quite right, and the only thing I was able to track it back to was xconfig. I was also working on a much slower processor than I am now, and having X running during the compile measurably lengthened my compile times. So I got used to using menuconfig. Now when I configure and compile a kernel, I will open an xterm, su to root, cd to /usr/src/linux, configure with menuconfig, compile and do all the other stuff up to the reboot, and then when I exit root, I am back in my home directory again safe and sound.

The only difference in "menuconfig" and using "xconfig" is the menu
from which you configure the options. Once you save and exit from
"make <x>config" it's all the same.

You are saving those options to a
file, and after than you're not using "xconfig" so compiling times are
in no way effected.

NB: Where <x> is a variable, meaning any of the options.

DJNolz83 · 09-14-2006, 09:44 PM

This thread is a god-send!

Reading through most of the posts here has given me some idea about where to place my kernel sources and do the builds etc etc.
At my previous attempt to compile a kernel (my first time!!) I have been able to get it down pat, and boot to it, but two of my REQUIRED modules(madwifi and nvidia) wont load. Someone mentioned to me that its not able to find the sources in the standard folder. This has something to do with the fact that I was unpacking and placing my source(s) into /usr/local/src.

So I guess it is almost agreed on that the best place to unpack/put the sources is /usr/src/linux* (where * represents version number)

By the way, are symlinks permanent, or are they temporary?

dive · 09-14-2006, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DJNolz83

So I guess it is almost agreed on that the best place to unpack/put the sources is /usr/src/linux*

Right is Might, not the other way around

hussar · 09-14-2006, 11:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruce Hill

The only difference in "menuconfig" and using "xconfig" is the menu
from which you configure the options. Once you save and exit from
"make <x>config" it's all the same.

You are saving those options to a
file, and after than you're not using "xconfig" so compiling times are
in no way effected.

NB: Where <x> is a variable, meaning any of the options.

Yep, you are absolutely right. But, I have to run X to run xconfig (where x is one of the configs that requires X to be running), and X's resource requirements were slowing my compiles. To get a faster compile, I had to exit X. If I had to exit X anyway, it made more sense to me not to start it at all. I can run menuconfig from the console without X running and without using all those resources. Now it doesn't really matter because of the current processor speeds but back then it did.