[wellylug] Kernel Compile

[Leslie Boardman]

Thanks for the advice and pointers.  When I was trying to get debian 
working on the laptop in the first instance I did look at the linux-on-
laptop sites for guidence but I had forgotten about them since 
everything is running pretty smoothly.

I have installed and make-kpkg and the associated bits and pieces for 
the 2.4bf kernel and have compiled one kernel and the alsa and 
pcmcia .deb packages against my new kernel (all of which I am too 
gutless to install at this time :-)

Hunting around I found some "How to compile using make-kpkg for 
beginners" type pages but they didn't really go in to "what if it goes 
wrong" and for the most part assumed I was compiling my own kernel as 
well as the alsa modules. 

I tried compiling just the alsa modules to a .deb package by doing the 
following:

1. go to /usr/src/linux and run make-kpkg clean 
2. cp /boot/config-[long bit ending in bf24] /usr/src/linux/.config
3. run "make oldconfig"
4. then "make dep"
5. then make-kpkg --added-modules=alsa-driver modules_image

All of the above is from memory so may not be word-for-word what I 
typed.

Then my laptop takes off and does all this impressive number crunching 
that looks to the casual observer that I am a hardcore code junkie.

At the end it says something like "alsa-drivers failed".  Oddly in all 
the streaming script it seems to be doing stuff with the kernel modules 
before it trys to get going with the alsa ones.

My conclusion (rightly or wrongly) was that short cutting the system 
was not a good idea and I should just bite the bullet and learn about 
kernel compilation (that and I read someplace that you're not *really* 
a linux user until you have compiled a kernel :-)

Am I correct in thinking that If I copy the /boot/config..bf24 
to /usr/src/linux/.config, run make oldconfig and then run make-
kpkg ... I will end up with a custom kernel that is pretty much the 
same as the debian 2.4bf kernel?

Leslie

> >2.  There are lots of options that are chipset specific (fixes 
etc).  Is
> >there a good 'one stop site' or some method to work out which 
chipsets
> >are in your machine or is it trial and error?
> 
> lspci.  And guess.
> 
> For a laptop (which you mentioned) there are two sites with "Linux
> reports" for the laptop written by various people who have been 
through
> this process already:
> 
> http://www.linux-laptop.net/
> http://tuxmobil.org/
> 
> Look for your laptop model and see what they say is in there.  If your
> model isn't there, look for similar models/models release around the
> same time.  (I still don't know precisely what's in my Acer laptop, 
and
> I've had it 18 months and spent a while looking -- in particular I'd
> love to know what the bluetooth chip is, and how it's connected up.)
> 
> >3.  Is there any place where the config options for the precompiled
> >debian kernels can be read?
> 
> less /boot/config-`uname -r`
> 
> Debian's kernel packages are wonderful for including this right in the
> package.  (And I strongly recommend that you install "kernel-package"
> and use "make-kpkg" when building kernels for a Debian system -- it
> gives you an installable package with the kernel and all the other
> things you expect in a Debian kernel package.  Very handy.)
> 
> Finally if it's only the Alsa modules you're missing, why not install
> alsa-source and just recompile the modules for the kernel you have?  I
> can't remember how recent the alsa-source is in Woody, but you can
> easily enough use the alsa-source deb from Unstable as it's got
> basically no dependencies (it just installs the source tar file and 
some
> helper scripts for building things).  You may need the bf2.4 kernel
> headers, but you should be able to get those from a Debian archive 
near
> you.
-- 
Leslie Boardman, E: elbe at araitanga.com, ICQ: 153582540 
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"ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"-Darwin