[wellylug] Dumb questions 101 - How to compile a more modern Kernel for Debian

[Ewen McNeill]

In message <47599.219.88.101.72.1074808436.squirrel at 192.168.1.10>, "Jamie Dobbs"
 writes:
>The only issue is that I have never been able to successfully compile and
>install an up-to-date kernel for Debian. 

wget KERNELSOURCE.gz
tar -xzf KERNELSOURCE    (or tar -xjf KERNELSOURCE if you get the bzip2 version0
cd linux
cp /boot/config-`uname -r` .config
make menuconfig          (or xconfig or whatever; to update config for 
                          new kernel options; or do "make oldconfig"
			  against the /boot/... file)
apt-get install kernel-package
make-kpkg clean
make-kpkg --revision=SOMETHING kernel_image kernel_headers  
dpkg -i kernel-image-2.4*deb kernel-headers-2.4*deb

In particular /boot/config-`uname -r` has your current kernel
configuration, providing you actually use the Debian kernels or build
your own with make-kpkg.  This is very useful.

make-kpkg is the utility which will build nice Debian kernel packages; I
highly reocmmend it's use.  Manually building kernels and copying them
into place is just asking for a maintenance nightmare.

If you build proper Debian kernel packages and install them, and use
lilo (in Debian's recommended setup), then simply installing the Debian
kernel package (even one you built yourself as above) takes care of all
the little details of making it bootable, etc.

Ewen